Choose one contemporary cultural artifact or text. This can be a particular:
• Video
• Song
• Photograph/painting
• Dance choreography
• Play
• Poem
• Something else you think is a cultural text; if you check with me
Describe what is interesting and important about the cultural artifact. Then, using your sociological imagination, make an argument about the social meaning of the cultural artifact and back it up with theory, literature and analysis.
- First describe your cultural artifact in detail. Make an argument to the reader about why it is significant, without relying too heavily on personal anecdotes.
- Connect your cultural artifact with the larger themes of race, gender, and class that we have been dealing with in this section of the class.
- Choose either DuBois, Collins, or Anzaldúa’s theories of racial and ethnic identity. Describe that theoretical framework (imagine the reader has never heard of it before and break it down). Answer this question: how does this theoretical framework relate to the cultural artifact you are covering in this paper?