What are the details of our daily existence? What systems dominate our lives? What meanings can we make of our situation?

This social studies/humanities course will steal from various disciplines - including anthropology, critical theory, cultural studies, economics, futurology, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology - to help us make sense of our situation.

A major goal of the course will be to focus your attention on your own life. Together we will investigate major systems that create and rule our lives including capitalism, school, family, popular culture, and the US government. And we will figure out how to interpret our lives, and these systems, and the collision of our lives and these systems.

We will detour into the future and the past but our journey will be primarily contemporary.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

5/10/10 in 101

Hope everyone enjoyed the funny weather this weekend.

HW 54 -
Pt 1: Take this Myers-Briggs test (or a similar one) and analyze the usefulness of the results in 1-2 paragraphs. If you enjoy the process consider taking this "Big Five" test too.

It'd be interesting if you posted your results but don't feel that you need to. Please write down the categorization the test(s) offers on a piece of paper (or phone) you will have in class on Tuesday.

Pt 2: Please add an additional paragraph addressing insights on interpersonal relationships related to this test. Ideally this would address your evaluation of the reliability and usefulness of the test - as demonstrated in experiments in class and your own guesses about another's Myers-Briggs score. You should also consider the implications of people having measurably different personalities in terms of our relationships - whether "appreciate difference" or "maximize compatibility" are the conclusions you draw.

Due Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 9pm.

My results can be found here for both tests. Please check someone else's that you know fairly well - that will help you evaluate the reliability of the test(s).

HW 55 -
Pt 1: Please post your independent research question/topic.

Your research should be based in one of the four domains of relationships we plotted in class - family, friends, frequent interactions, and mediated relations. You should further focus the question to enable you to do a precise, sharp, and interesting independent research paper. For instance - "why do people divorce?" is not that good, "what are the primary causes of divorce?" is somewhat better, and "is marriage counseling an effective remedy, in most cases, for the primary causes of divorce, and if so, how?" is quite a bit better. Your question should be clearly answerable using social sciences evidence and intelligent analysis - not serve as merely a launching pad for spacy speculation.

Pt 2: Next please visit your old triangle partners' blogs (or two other students who will reciprocate) and offer them feedback on the sharpness and clarity of their independent research questions. If they have a question that you consider vague or overwhelmingly broad please suggest an alternate formulation in their comment section (copy and paste to your own blog).

Pt 3: Post your possibly revised question and conduct internet research, creating an annotated bibliography of 4 or more credible and possibly helpful sources online. The annotated bibliography should cite the sources in MLA format and offer a paragraph that combines very succinct summary and very succinct evaluation of usability of the source.

Due Wednesday, May 12, 8pm.


PS - For more information and examples you can see other students' questions collected here.

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