Category: Cultural studies

Midterm Assignment: Cultural Reflection

In this course, we have explored how we do not see the world as it is, but rather through lenses shaped by our environment and history. This assignment asks you to apply two core concepts from this course to your own life:

1. Kulturbrille (Culture-Glasses): A term from Franz Boas. It refers to the cultural glasses we wear that make our own way of life or knowledge systems seem natural, while making different ways of life seem strange, wrong, or even invisible.

2. Coloniality: A concept from decolonial theory describing how the power structures, hierarchies, and ways of knowing developed during the early modern period still shape our world today. Unlike colonialism, which refers to the era of direct political rule, coloniality is the ongoing mindset and structural reality that survives the end of colonial administrations.

Requirements

Choose one of the prompts below and write a 1,500-word analytical essay. Your goal is to identify a specific aspect of your life or a system you interact with and analyze it through the lens of Kulturbrille and Coloniality. Your reflection should not be longer than your analysis. Submit your work as a .doc or .docx

All essays must be within 15% of this wordcount (between 1275 and 1725), exclusive of the works cited section. Students must have no fewer than 4 academic works cited (in-text with a bibliography/sources section) and properly formatted, using the form of academic citation that you are most comfortable with. The primary text and supplemental articles used in the teaching of this course may not be used. Your research is expected to extend beyond the course materials.

It is important to be concise in your work, and to work within prescribed boundaries. Failure to comply with one of those rules will result in a loss of 50% of the overall grade. Failure to comply with both rules will result in an automatic zero (0).

The use of AI in the generation of your work is prohibited, any use detected by your professor will result in an automatic zero (0) for the grade.

(Late submissions are not permitted)

Prompt 1: The Standards of Professionalism

Reflect: Identify a professional or formal setting you have participated in. What specific traits (speech, dress, grooming, or etiquette) were categorized as professional in that space? How does your own background influence your comfort with or distance from those standards?

Analyze: Examine how certain aesthetic or linguistic norms became globalized. How do these standards reflect coloniality by prioritizing specific cultural traits as “universal” while marginalizing others as “particular” or “unprofessional”?

Prompt 2: The Ideal Body

Reflect: Examine a specific health or beauty standard present in your community or industry. How do you personally relate to this standard? Do you perceive it as a neutral, biological fact, or a cultural preference?

Analyze: Research the historical development of these standards. How does coloniality continue to rank human bodies based on proximity to a specific ideal? Discuss how these hierarchies are maintained in modern healthcare or media.

Prompt 3: Formal Education

Reflect: Consider a specific method of learning or assessment you have encountered (e.g., standardized testing, the physical layout of a classroom, or the hierarchy between teacher and student). How does your background shape your perspective on whether this is an effective or “correct” way to learn?

Analyze: Research the origins of modern institutional schooling. Discuss how these systems were exported or imposed during the early modern era to create a specific type of citizen or worker. How does the dominance of this model marginalize alternative ways of sharing and producing knowledge?

Prompt 4: Healing

Reflect: When you encounter a health crisis, how do you determine which forms of knowledge (e.g., clinical, traditional, holistic, or spiritual) are trustworthy? What leads you to categorize a practice as “science” versus “alternative”?

Analyze: Examine how, through colonial hierarchies of knowledge, Western biomedicine was positioned as the sole rational science during the early modern period. How did this positioning lead to the delegitimization of indigenous or non-Western healing systems? Discuss the power dynamics involved in how medical knowledge is validated today.

Prompt 5: Family

Reflect: Analyze a definition of family or household used by a government or social institution (e.g., for taxes, immigration, or housing). How does this definition align or conflict with your lived experience of kinship?

Analyze: Research how the Western nuclear family model was exported and enforced globally. How does the continued legal and social prioritization of this unit reflect coloniality by rendering communal or extended kinship networks “invisible” or “abnormal” in the eyes of the law?

Prompt 6: The Standardized Clock

Reflect: Look at your daily or yearly schedule. Which cultural or religious markers are integrated into the “default” calendar of your society, and which require special permission to observe? How does this impact your sense of belonging?

Analyze: Explore how the universalization of the Gregorian calendar and the industrial work week functions as a mechanism of coloniality. How does this system force diverse populations to synchronize with a specific cultural and economic rhythm?

Prompt 7: The Cartography of Power

Reflect: Think about a map or GPS tool you use. How does it influence your sense of which places are “central” or “close” and which are “remote” or “peripheral”?

Analyze: Research the role of cartography in establishing global hierarchies. How does the continued use of specific map projections or naming conventions reflect coloniality by reinforcing a worldview created in the early modern period?

Prompt 8: Nature

Reflect: Consider a piece of land you are familiar with. Do you view it primarily as a resource to be managed, a property to be owned, or a living entity with its own rights? Where did those views come from?

Analyze: Examine the shift from relational land systems to the modern model of private property. How does the persistence of this model today reflect coloniality in environmental conservation or urban planning?

The narrator describes Puerto Rico as “an accidental imperial inheritance of the Spanish-American War.” What does this phrase mean, and how does it shape the way the United States governed the island from the start?

please edit this paper and finish it

The paper must include a paragraph on each topic; include at least a statement about each topic. The two following topics for paragraphs are: Child-rearing practices and religious practices.

Following the Presentation Outline provided in the develop an outline for your presentation. Provide brief details about the summary of both sides of the topic, your opinion, conclusion, and relevant questions.

Your outline should be approximately one to two pages in length and should include the major points and arguments you intend to share in your presentation.

Save your assignment using a naming convention that includes your first and last name and the activity number (or description). Do not add punctuation or special characters.

Refer to the assignment rubric for detailed grading criteria.

1. You are responsible for submitting a complete short story that is reflective of life experiences related to race or racism. The story must be based on true events, though you can take creative liberty with some of the details
2. You will need to include course content throughout your story:
3. The content must include a minimum of 2 items of content from each of the three (3) parts of the course (Internalized, Interpersonal, and Institutional Racism). For example, your story might contain examples of white fragility and failure to identify ethnically (part I) related to the medical and educational fields (part III) that demonstrates colorblind theory or a microaggressions (part II)
4. So, your goal is to weave concepts, theories or content from the course throughout your story but you will also need to include citations as evidence (e.g., you can reference your general use of a concept with the Module #? in parentheses or you can cite specific/directly quoted course sources with Author last name, year, page # in parentheses)
5. While writing the story, you must engage in deep reflection using the internal and external writing prompts below. But, remember this is a story, not a question-and-answer response to the listed questions. So you should include your responses to these questions throughout. But you could address some questions at beginning and some at the end. Or even address them all upfront. As long as they are answered within the paper without it seeming like a question/answer format.
6. Internal Prompts
7. What is the memorable experience dealing with race, racism, and/or race relations you want to recall/share?
8. How did you feel while this was happening or while watching it happen?
9. What was your response and what was the response of others around you?
10. What impact did it have on you? What did you learn from the experience?
11. Did the encounter change you in some way, and if so, how?
12. What was the context? What were the surroundings? Describe the environment where the event took place.
13. If there was resolution to the situation, how did it come about? If not, why not?
14. How just was the outcome? How do you feel about how just it was?
15. External Prompts
16. What course reading(s) will you remember most and why? What course reading(s) challenged you the most and why?
17. This course falls under the Envisioning Just Worlds theme for the Certificate in Humanistic Inquiry, so we must ask:
18. What did you think about how just our world is before this course and how do you think about it now? Have any of your assumptions or understandings changed and why?
19. Where do you see connections with the theme of a Just World in this class and theme questions in other classes (or contexts)?
20. What are your personal goals for your education and how does what you learned in this course support your goals?
21. External Readings
22. There are additional readings presented in Module 15, which are excerpts of chapters from books by J. Drew Lanham and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Both of these authors write about race related issues like POC and the environment (J. Drew Lanham) and the persistent criminalization of the black body (Ta-Nehisi Coates) in a story-telling manner. Look for creative ways to connect and include either or both of these texts to your story.
23. Illustration
24. As a second part of this assignment, once you have written your story, you will choose how to present it creatively. It should be reflective of your personal style, learning preference and/or artistic ability.
25. You can submit your illustration in one (1) of the following ways:
26. Record yourself reading the story and submit the video
27. Create a comic strip that tells the story
28. Have others join you and record yourselves acting out the story
29. Develop a creative PowerPoint or Slides
30. Create a series of Snapchat stories that illustrate what happened in the story
31. Record yourself performing part of the story as a spoken word, song, or poem.

Guidelines: The proposal for your final project should be no more than 1 page typed, single spaced, Times New Roman or Arial 12-pt font, 1-inch margins.

Before Starting this Proposal: You need to locate the Final Project module and read the outline of the project. The details there will inform what you write in this proposal.

Goal of this Assignment: For this proposal, you will brainstorm possible story events and illustration methods for your project.

1. List & briefly describe three possible race related situations/scenarios/events that you could possibly write about in a 3-page story (1 paragraph each [or 6-8 sentences each] for a total of 3 paragraphs)
2. Include a draft story title for each of the possible stories (3 in total)
3. Identify the target audience for each story
4. Include a key terms list at bottom of every paragraph that includes concepts, theories, etc. that weve already covered this semester which we covered up to chapter 10 that could possibly be identified in each story
5. For each story, list one PRO and one CON of what makes that event strong enough (or not) to be the main topic of the final project
6. In a separate section list two ways you could illustrate your story (see list on Final Project Outline). For each illustration type, list one advantage and one disadvantage.

Textbook: Desmond, M. & Emirbayer, M. 2020. Race in America, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &

Company.

• Research and write about (A historical or contemporary movement that advanced multiculturalism or inclusion)

Written Component 600800 words

Your paper should include:

• A clear explanation of key terms: diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism
• At least one real-world example or case study
• Your reflection on why this topic is important in todays society

Use at least 2 credible sources and cite them properly (APA, 7th edition).

Chapter 9 of the course textbook revealed that there are marked differences in breastfeeding practices and cessation based upon social class.

Were you surprised to learn that class can impact even intimate family practices such as these? What sorts of obstacles can you imagine working-class women facing that would impact their ability to continue breastfeeding their children? How is that related to socio-economic status and the types of work in which women may be engaged? Do you believe public policies can be shaped in a way that addresses obstacles to breastfeeding and leads to healthier outcomes for working-class children just starting out their lives?