PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY!
I've compiled this information in order to help you do research and write a solid paper. So please use it as a resource to guide you.
Assignment Overview
Your case study is a 4-5 page paper assignment that asks you to use one, or more, of the theories and/or concepts we have learned class in order to analyze specific cultural phenomena, such as a cultural artifact (i.e. a material object...a 'thing'), a cultural text (i.e. a comic book, an advertisement, a novel, etc), a cultural practice (i.e. playing music, driving, cooking, etc), a cultural space (i.e. a natural history museum, a dive bar, a classroom, etc), or a cultural event (i.e. the Super Bowl, a renaissance festival, the World's Fair, etc). In addition to making use of course materials, I expect you to do a substantial amount of research and to utilize academic materials in your analysis, i.e. peer-reviewed journals and book.
- Papers must be uploaded onto Moodle by the last day of class: Wednesday, May 2nd at 12:30pm. You will find a link to upload the assignment in the last week of the calendar on Moodle. Just to reiterate: I will NOT accept late papers. They are due on the last day of class. Period.
- Papers should following standard formatting: 12 pt Times New Roman font, default margins, double-spaced, and numbered pages. In addition, the only information I need at the top of page one is your name (no course info, professor name, etc). Your paper should also have a proper title.
- Papers must include a bibliography (works cited). Papers without a bibliography will earn an automatic 'F'.
Here are links to Case Study papers written by previous students in my Introduction to Cultural Studies course (on the Virgin of Guadalupe, and 'Ethnic' Dance), and in my Cultural Theories class (on news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and Reggae). I’m giving them to you because they are all good examples of how to do a ‘cultural studies’ analysis of a concise, workable topic (a case study). In each of these papers, the authors examine specific cultural phenomena—news coverage, music, religious icons, dance (respectively)—and they all use theoretical concepts to frame their arguments. You should pay particular attention to the way the authors do the following things:
- They each provide a clear thesis statement and develop a specific argument in the introduction.
- They make use of research materials from course readings and other scholarly resources (see the Hurricane Katrina sample paper above).
- They effectively apply concepts from the course in their analysis. You can think of this as using intellectual tools to construct a theoretical framework.
If you do not have a great deal of experience writing research papers, please make sure to take advantage of the writing center on campus and ask me questions as they arise...just don't wait until the last minute to do so! Here is some additional information about writing and constructing an academic paper.
Selecting Your Topic
I’m more than happy to help you develop your paper and/or formulate your analysis. I’m also willing to help you come up with ways to shape, or direct, your topic. What I am not willing to do is to simultaneously provide you with a topic, an argument, a way to organize your paper, and a list of resources to use. In short, you need to put some effort into thinking through your topic and your argument. Consequently, if you need to get in touch with me about your topic, make sure that you can at least answer the three most basic questions that I would ask you myself:
- What is your object of study (your specific case study topic) and why are you interested in writing about it?
- Why is your object of study cultural significant? And what do you want to say about it, specifically?
- What is the main question (or questions) you hope to address in your paper?
- What concept(s) from the course are going to be the most useful in framing your analysis?
Format
I don't care what citation format you use in your paper, just stick with one throughout the paper (either Chicago Manual of Style or MLA are both fine). Just make sure to include specific page numbers in your citations (unless it's an Internet resource) and also be sure to include a formatted bibliography of the sources you used in the paper. NOTE: If you do not cite your sources and you do not include a bibliography in your paper, you will receive an automatic 'F' for the assignment.
If you make use of materials from the Internet--i.e. articles that are only available online and not in print--make sure to include the following information in your bibliography: the author, the title of the article or post, the main website on which the article was published, the date of publication (if it's available), and finally, the web address itself. I do NOT care about the date on which you accessed the website, so please do not include it. Here are sample citations and a corresponding bibliography entry for an Internet resource:
- If you are using footnotes: April Streeter, "B-Cycle Bike Sharing Has Plans for Denver...and a U.S. City Near You?," TreeHugger.com, March 13, 2009, Online.
- If you are using parenthetical citations: (Streeter, 2009)
- Bibliography entry: Streeter, April. "B-Cycle Bike Sharing Has Plans for Denver...and a U.S. City Near You?" TreeHugger.com, March 13, 2009. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/bcycles-big-bike-share-plans.php
I’m not going to put a quota on how many resources you are suppose to use for the case study but a good rule of thumb is to have at least one or two scholarly resource for every page of your paper (i.e. a five-page paper would have at least five to ten sources, in addition to the main article or articles that you are using to build your analysis). However, it all depends upon the quality of your sources. For example, citing three different articles in the Chicago Sun-Times doesn’t count as doing scholarly research…newspapers and other reference materials are fabulous for gaining knowledge about specific topics, but they are not a replacement for doing primary research in which analysis and critique (as opposed to reporting) are the primary objectives. In short, your research should consist largely of:
- Class readings
- Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles (i.e. found in journals like Media, Culture & Society, Cultural Studies, Signs, Cultural Anthropology, International Journal of Zizek Studies, etc)
- Books written for a college audience
- Select articles featured in publications that focus on cultural criticism (such as Souciant Magazine, Bad Subjects, Pop Matters, Bitch Magazine, Salon.com)
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| I pity the fool who cites Wikipedia! |
Doing research means that you will undoubtedly have to spend some time wading through resources that may turn out to be irrelevant to your topic, your argument, or the specific points you want to make in your paper. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes. The right resources for your case study will not always be the most obvious ones, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time to do research. I've tried to offer a variety of articles on each week's topics that should be helpful to you. Specifically, I posted "further reading & research" links to articles or book chapters that are either (1) written by folks who are influential thinkers and/or experts in their specific field of study, or (2) written in such a way that they help to explain difficult concepts and/or theorists. If nothing else, the bibliographies from these articles will be good places to look for relevant articles and books.
Examples of Case Studies
Many of the readings I've assigned throughout the semester are good examples of 'case studies', but there are many more available in academic (peer-reviewed) journals. Below, I'm providing links to a number of articles that serve as excellent examples of cultural studies case studies. Please bear in mind that I do NOT expect any of your papers to be as long or as developed as those listed below. But I do expect you to familiarize yourself with some of the conventions that these authors use in their work, namely the ways that each author uses his or her introduction to 1) clearly define the topic, or 'object of study', 2) clearly make an argument that frames the paper, and 3) clearly explains the specific theoretical framework--the concepts used to frame the discussion and support the argument.
Production and Consumption Case Studies
- Carol Stabile, “Nike, Social Responsibility, and the Hidden Abode of Production,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2000): 186-204.
- Shane Gunster, “‘You Belong Outside’: Advertising, Nature, and the SUV,” Ethics & the Environment, vol. 9, no. 2 (2004): 4-32.
- Karen DeBres, “Burgers for Britain: A Cultural Geography of McDonald’s UK,” Journal of Cultural Geography, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2005):115-139.
- Andy Opel, “Constructing Purity: Bottled Water and the Commodification of Nature,” Journal of American Culture, vol. 22, no. 4 (1999): 67-76.
- Carol Stabile, "‘Sweetheart, This Ain’t Gender Studies’: Sexism and Superheroes," Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Vol. 6, No. 9 (2009): 86-92.
- Thomas P. Oates, “The Erotic Gaze in the NFL Draft,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2007): 74-90.
- R. Anthony Slagle, “Queer Criticism and Sexual Normativity: The Case of Pee-wee Herman,” Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 45, Nos. 2–4 (2003): 129-146.
- D. Marie Ralstin Lewis, "The Continuing Struggle against Genocide: Indigenous Women’s Reproductive Rights," Wacazo Sa Review (Spring 2005): 71-95.
- Pancho Mcfarland, "Hyper- Masculine and Misogynist Violence in Chicano Rap," Bad Subjects #61, 2002.
- Ryan Edwardson, “The Many Lives of Captain Canuck: Nationalism, Culture, and the Creation of a Canadian Comic Book Superhero,” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 37, no. 2 (2003) pp. 184-201.
- Phillip M. Bratta, “Flag Display Post-9/11: A Discourse on American Nationalism,” The Journal of American Culture, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2009), pp. 232-243. (NOTE: Phil was a Cultural Studies major at Columbia and this article is a revision of his senior capstone thesis).
- Demetrius W. Pearson and C. Allen Haney, “The Rodeo Cowboy as an American Icon: The Perceived Social and Cultural Significance,” Journal of American Culture, vol. 22, no. 4 (1999): 17-22.
- Cory Pillen, “See America: WPA Posters and the Mapping of a New Deal Democracy,”Journal of American Culture, vol. 31, no. 1 (2008): 49-65.
- Johan Hoglund, "Electronic Empire: Orientalism Revisited in the Military Shooter," Game Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2008).
- Sunaina Maira, "Belly Dancing: Arab-Face, Orientalist Feminism and U.S. Empire," American Quarterly (2008), pp. 317-345.
- Adria Imada “Hawaiians on Tour: Hula Circuits through the American Empire,” American Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1 (2004) pp. 111-149.
- Adria Imada, “The Army Learns to Luau: Imperial Hospitality and Military Photography in Hawai'i,” Contemporary Pacific, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2008) pp. 329-361.
- Slavoj Žižek,"The Matrix, or, the Two Sides of Perversion," a paper presented at Inside the Matrix: International Symposium at the Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, October 28, 1999.
- Richard Pope, “Realizing the Scene: Punk and the Evacuation of Meaning and Fantasy,” International Journal of Žižek Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2009).
- Stuart Hall, "The Determinations of News Photographs," Working Papers in Cultural Studies, No.3. Reprinted in S.Cohen and J.Young (eds), The Manufacture of News (London: Constable, 19730.
- Lu Xing-Hua, “A Political Semiotic Reading of Three Propaganda Posters of the Chinese Cultural Revolution,” Semiotica, Vol. 157, Nos. 1-4 (2005), pp. 213–232.
- Ross Haenfler, "Rethinking Subcultural Resistance: Core Values of the Straightedge Movement," Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 33 No. 4 (2004), pp. 406-436.
- Sunaina Maira, “Henna and Hip Hop: Cultural Production and the Work of Cultural Studies,” Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2000), pp. 329-369.
- Daniel S. Traber, “L. A.’s ‘White Minority’: Punk and the Contradictions of Self-Marginalization," Cultural Critique, No. 48. (Spring, 2001), pp. 30-64.
- Stephen Duncombe, “Identity” in Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture (New York: Verso, 1997).
- Dennis Cutchins, “‘So That the Nations May Become Genuine Indian’: Nativism and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony," Journal of American Culture, vol. 22, no. 4 (1999): 77-89.
- Fred Turner, "Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community," Technology and Culture, vol. 46 (2005): 485-512.
- David Gartman, "Three Ages of the Automobile: The Cultural Logics of The Car," Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 21, nos. 4/5 (2004): 169–195.
- Anne Balsamo, "On the Cutting Edge: Cosmetic Surgery and the Technological Production of the Gendered Body," Camera Obscura, 28, January 1992, pp. 207-238.
- Lila Abu-Lughod, “Bedouins, Cassettes and Technologies of Public Culture,” Middle East Report, No. 159, (Jul-Aug, 1989), pp. 7-11 & 47.
- Setha Low, "The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of Urban Fear," American Anthropologist, Vol. 103, No. 1 (2001), pp. 45-58.
- Ann Hetzel Gunkel, "The Sacred in the City: Polonian Street Processions as Countercultural Practice," Polish American Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2 (2003), pp. 7-23.
- Murray Foreman,"'Represent': Race, Space and Place in Rap Music," Popular Music, Vol. 19, No. 1, (2000), pp. 65-90.
- Don Mitchell, “The End of Public Space? People's Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 85, No. 1 (1995), pp. 108-133.
- Iain Borden, “A Performative Critique of the American City: the Urban Practice of Skateboarding, 1958-1998.” Skateboard Directory, May 2001.
- Cotten Seiler, “'So That We as a Race Might Have Something Authentic to Travel By': African American Automobility and Cold-War Liberalism," American Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4 (2006), pp. 1091-1117.
- Gary Allan Tobin, “The Bicycle Boom of the 1890’s: The Development of Private Transportation and the Birth of the Modern Tourist,” Popular Culture, 7, 1974.
- Tim Cresswell, “Mobility as Resistance: A Geographical Reading of Kerouac’s On the Road,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1993), pp. 249-262.
- Giuliana Bruno, "Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner", October, vol. 41 (1987), pp. 61-74.
- George Lipsitz, “Cruising around the Historical Bloc: Postmodernism and Popular Music in East Los Angeles,” Cultural Critique, No. 5 (Winter, 1986-1987), pp. 157-177.
- Umberto Rossi, "From Dick to Lethem: The Dickian Legacy, Postmodernism, and Avant-Pop in Jonathan Lethem's 'Amnesia Moon'," Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2002), pp. 15-33.
