HR101A: Minds & Bodies

Second Essay Assignment

 

A 5-7 page essay is due at the beginning of class on Monday, April 7. Below are a series of suggested topics. Please note that we are most interested in seeing you use the texts that we have read and discussed in class to pursue your own interests and to develop your own theses. If your interests lead you in a direction different from those suggested in the topics below, please see Prof. Harriott or Prof. Epstein to discuss your ideas and to get permission to address a different topic.

 

  1. Write a social action piece in the form of a letter to one of the presidential candidates. Pick a candidate and investigate their position on stem cell research. Write a letter in support of or against their views on this topic.
  2. Revisit the nature versus nurture debate and relate these concepts to the biology of sex & gender and the story of Bruce/Brenda in "Sex: Unknown."
  3. Shakespeare wrote a sequence of 154 sonnets. The first 126 are apparently addressed to a man (the so-called "fair young man"); the last 28 are apparently directed to a woman (the "dark lady"). Compare and contrast one of the sonnets directed to the man to one of the sonnets directed to the woman, in terms of their representations of sex and gender. (You may or may not choose to apply the theories of Thomas Laqueur’s Making Sex.)
  4. Choose any period in the history of science. Using Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex and other sources, investigate the understanding and construction of sexual difference in that period, with attention to how the science shaped social convention, and vice versa.
  5. Does Ladelle McWhorter's characterization of the way social forces shape the conception of bodies, and even shape bodies themselves-- particularly female bodies-- resonate with you? Or do the seem foreign to your experience. Analyze and respond to McWhorter's "Natural Bodies, or, Ain't Nobody Here but Us Deviants," and feel free to bring to bear real-world examples, including examples from your own life.
  6. Compare and contrast a classic fairy tale to one of its modern revisions. For example, compare Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" or the Brothers Grimm's "Fitcher's Bird" to Margaret Atwood's “Bluebeard’s Egg”; or de Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast" to Angela Carter's “The Tiger’s Bride”; or a classic version of "Little Red Riding Hood" to Angela Carter's “The Company of Wolves” (the story or the film).
  7. Analyze Brontë's Jane Eyre by analogy to a classic fairy tale, such as “Snow White,” “Cinderella,” “Donkeyskin,” or “Bluebeard.” Consider such topics as: the qualities of heroines, such as strength or weakness, activeness or passivity; male and female gender roles; marriage and romance in women’s lives and choices; the ways stories challenge or reinforce class distinctions and stereotypes.