The central assignment of Senior Seminar is an extended, independent research project. You
will produce an original, high-quality research paper on a subject that fascinates and
intrigues you, and you will share your research with your classmates in a presentation.
You can select any topic related to modernity and/or life in today’s world for this project. As
with any research project, however, your work should begin with a clear and focused
question, problem, or observation. You should also ensure your work is led by a central
argument made in dialogue with scholarly literature you have sourced; your paper should
not merely be a descriiptive essay “about” a topic.
Integrate course ideas and readings within your paper and presentation to demonstrate
your understanding of modernity as a theoretical, historical, and political concept.
Paper
• The final draft should be approximately 15 pages in length, excluding footnotes,
endnotes, and bibliography.
• You should find and use at least 10 academic sources in the paper, excluding
readings from the syllabus.
• Format your work carefully. In particular, all references and quotations should be
cited within the essay using a standard referencing style, such as MLA, APA, or
Chicago, and a bibliography should list all sources you have used in the paper.
Consult an expert if you are unsure how to cite sources correctly.
• The paper will be designed, developed, and drafted in stages under supervision.
Class activities and pre-draft writing assignments will help you. Manage your time
carefully during the semester and seek advice and feedback regularly.
Please use sources provided and add more
please check out the work of Mona Abaza on malls in Egypt.
Requirements for revision/ corrections:
Is it possible to make it more descriiptive much like the example essay I sent. Bringing yourself in as a story. I really like the use of the sources but it needs to be descriiptive as it is an experiment, much like SO100 Example essay. The topic there is different though. You can also make up interactions in either spaces or use some of my descriiption of the rock club.
To help, I have uploaded a rubric of a previous paper. I think the second page still applies to this paper.
General Descriiption:
Describe your own socialization into a set of class-specific competencies and dispositions, as Khan describes among St. Paul’s students. Analyze the habitus of the rock club in a comparative context to the orchestra. Observe how people comport themselves and interact with others in two dissimilar sociological environments, and analyze how these differ between the two groups. Which of these behaviors are learned, and how? In the end, make an observation about how the classes are stratified between the rock club that is in a lower class neighborhood vs. orchestra that is in a upper class neighborhood in Boston. Sight culture concepts from Pierre bourdiou and Shamus Rahman Khan’s “The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School” book and goffman’s paper attached about presentation of self. You can mention how they are both managing their impression and use impression management concepts mentioned by goffman. “Notes for merna” doc has some pierre bourdiou terms about cultural capital which is what you will mainly be analyzing. “Rock club” doc has my descriiptive experience at the rock club. Then, some few behaviours I have noticed. You can fill the gaps or create a descriiptive experience for the orchestra. You will need to compare and contrast, maybe bringing your specific class in as additional comparison. “Goffman presentation of self” pdf can be used to as source for impression management concepts. “SO100 Paper 1 Example” the teacher advised for it to have a similar style as this paper where they added descriiptive explaining of experiment and added concepts in every section. The other attached papers are khan’s book.
Culture paper
– Manchu culture is the topic I choose to do my research
-MLA double space 12 pt
-times new Romain
-Separate page for work cited
– The list is here follow the rules Each student will select a specific culture and write a minimum 5-page paper (double spaced, 12pt., Times New Roman) describing it utilizing an anthropological perspective. You may select any culture or subculture to write your paper on as long as conducting the research does not pose a risk to you or anyone else. Emphasis should be placed on applying the course theories and perspectives to analyze the culture (you could discuss their language, symbols, economics, kinship system, religion, etc.). You are required to utilize a minimum of 3 outside scholarly anthropological sources in the paper, but be sure to cite everything properly using MLA or APA format and include a works cited page.
– Do not use Wikipedia or Everyculture.com. Be sure to place all direct quotes in quotation marks or significant points will be deducted. If you plagiarize, you will receive a zero on this paper.
– You must cite any materials that you use to write your papers or posts using APA or MLA format. As a general rule, if you use three or more words from another source, put this material in “quotation marks” and follow the sentence with an in-text citation (author’s name, date, pg. #) or (webpage). If you paraphrase from a text, include an in-text citation at the end of the sentence. If you fail to properly cite your work, you will receive a zero for the assignment.
– Keep quotes to less than 30% of your total papers. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about this matter.
In our course we have set out from the study of biological evolution and understood humans as bio-cultural beings.
Remember the three tenets of Darwin’s theory of natural selection that we discussed in week 2:
• There exists heritable variation between individuals in any population.
• The nature of the environment causes some individuals to survive and reproduce more successfully than others.
• This changes the composition of the population in later generations, as succeeding generations of the population take on the characteristics of its reproducing members.
In week 5 we discussed the emergence of culture. We have explored various cases of cultural development, including uses of tools, fire, language, writing, graphism, and (in this week) money.
Can we adopt Darwin’s concepts (population, generations, heritability etc.) to study their history? If not, does it make sense to modify them?
Is their history an evolutionary history in Darwin’s sense?
If so, why? If not, why not?
If it were, does that mean that culture evolves through a sort of algorithm, as Darwin claimed for natural selection in biology?
If it were, would this mean that cultural developments are entirely subject to mechanical forces? Are these forces beyond our control? Are there ethical issues?
You do not need to discuss all of these questions – I list them as potential starting points for your discussion of the overarching question, Is human cultural evolution Darwinian?
Essay Question: Discuss the ways in which contemporary tourism practices impact the ‘Bushmen’.
Please read ALL of this before starting the essay and please make sure the writer is an EXPERT in social anthropology!!!
Before writing this essay, PLEASE research this essay topic to understand what it means and what to write about, the sources below should be extremely helpful for your research. Do not start writing this essay without researching and being fully informed first.
Instructions:
NEED to be 2,000 words, please keep it as close as possible to that exactly.
NEED to use ETHNOGRAPHIC EXAMPLES to support your arguments
NEED to use at least 3, but not limited to, you can use all of the sources cited below, but please use them in the paper and reference them and use them for your research
NEED to use at least 3 ethnographic examples
NEED to have 7 sources at least total
NEED to have a bibliography at the end citing all of the sources used, please do this in JRAI citation format
Please make sure throughout the essay that you are citing your sources as you are writing the paper too, which should be a lot because this paper should have A LOT of evidence, research, and support in it
Important: This is a formal essay, NOT a bunch of different paragraphs smushed together, it needs to flow seamlessly and have an introduction, body paragraphs, a conclusion, and a thesis statement. The title of the essay should be the essay question. This is a research and analytical essay, you are writing about the research and using evidence as proof. Please make sure this essay has topic sentences to start each paragraph, so that the transitions are great. Thank you so much!
Sources to use:
Finlay, Kate, and Shanade Barnabas. 2012, “Shifting representations of the Bushmen.” In Cultural Tourism and Identity, pp. 71-83. Brill.
Garland, Elizabeth, and Robert J. Gordon. 1999 “The authentic (in) authentic: Bushman anthro‐tourism.” Visual Anthropology 12, no. 2-3: 267-287.
Green, Isobel, and Jarkko Saarinen. 2022. “Changing Environment and the Political Ecology of Authenticity in Heritage Tourism: A Case of the Ovahimba and the Ju/’Hoansi-San Living Museums in Namibia.” In Southern African Perspectives on Sustainable Tourism Management, pp. 139-152. Springer, Cham.
Gressier, Catie. 2020. “The Noble Savage Reconfigured: Paradox and Mimesis on Safari in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.” In Anthropological Forum, vol. 30, no. 1-2, pp. 174-191. Routledge,
Koot, Stasja. “Cultural ecotourism as an indigenous modernity: Namibian Bushmen and two contradictions of capitalism.” In Routledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology, pp. 315-326. Routledge, 2016.
Koot, Stasja 2016.. “Contradictions of capitalism in the South African Kalahari: Indigenous Bushmen, their brand and baasskap in tourism.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 24, no. 8-9: 1211-1226.
For your first essay, you will explore the theory of evolution you were introduced to in Chapters 2-5 further by finding examples of evolution in the world around you.
Find a recent NEWS article that addresses an example of evolution. Examples include fossil finds, virus mutations, etc. (A news article is an article from a media source like a newspaper or magazine such as the New York Times, FOX, The Washington Post, VICE, National Geographic, etc. that addresses a current event. It does not include general information websites and sources like Wikipedia, eHow, dictionaries, academic journals, online encyclopedias, etc.)
Write a 300-word essay that answers the following questions, referring to the article and course materials, NOT random sources:
What is the modern evolutionary synthesis, i.e how do anthropologists currently explain how evolution works? See Chapter 2.
What types of evidence are used to support the theory?
How does the article you chose exemplify the theory of evolution at work in the world today?
Discuss with details and tie the findings in the article to what you learned in the module.
Your essay should:
Be a total of 300 words or more.
The 300-word limit DOES NOT include the questions, names, titles, and references.
It also does not include meaningless filler statements
Be written in complete sentences and paragraphs.
Be proofread for clarity.
Use factual information from the textbook and/or appropriate articles and websites.
Be original work – your submission will be checked for plagiarism.
Cite all your sources – type references according to the APA Style Guide Links to an external site..
Essays without proper citations and/or large portions copied from other sources will receive a zero.
Type your essay in a WORD Document, then upload your file by clicking “Browse My Computer” for Attach File.
Essays submitted to the “Comments” textbox or using an unsupported file type (see below) will receive a zero.
View the grading rubric above (Points Possible).
