Just a reminder, but I'll be in Blegen Hall, room 215, from 6 pm onward next Monday (Dec. 18) to collect your final papers. If you'd like to turn them in early, you can give them to me in my office (if I'm there) or you can leave them with the history department main office in Social Sciences Tower, room 614 (please make sure it's clearly marked that this is to go in my mailbox.)
And here's the assignment for those students choosing to write a longer final paper instead of the essay and final exam (option B).
Below is the second essay assignment for those students choosing option A. If you go this route, you'll write a 5-7 essay and do the final in-class exam.
Below is the midterm study guide. It will be an in-class essay exam. Specifically, you will write two essays. For the first essay, two of the three questions in the study guide will appear on the exam and you will choose one to write for the exam. The second question is exactly what will be on the exam. This will be a closed book exam (i.e. no notes, books, or other materials allowed).
Please email me if you have trouble opening the file.
Once again, I was really impressed and excited by the presentations to class last night. It looks like every group took interesting photographs and found evocative images in the database to compare and contrast to them.
In addition to opening up a forum for any additional comments, I left class with my head full of questions after looking at all the images. Mostly, I'm wondering what larger arguments we can make after comparing student life now to that in the 1930s and 1940s. How do we explain the seeming move from formal dress to increasing informality? How do we interpret the seeming increased role of technology in everyday life on campus (and the uneasiness about it)? Do we have evidence, as several of you suggested, of a move from community to individualism? Several people mentioned the overwhelming preponderance of "choice" in contemporary photos, and I'm wondering if we might make a larger argument about how "choice" and its analog, "freedom" (thanks for the idea, Hussein), are essential to making sense out of our contemporary world. How do people feel about all this choice and freedom?
Below is a link to the group project assignment. We'll discuss this in more detail tonight in the last hour of class.
Below is a link to the first essay assignment. This essay asks you to think CRITICALLY about the relationship between "the media" and race, gender, and politics. Please let me know if you have any questions or trouble opening the file.