1-2 Short Answer: Cultural Objects and Their Culture

HUM-100-R5001 Perspectives in the Humanities 22EW5

HUM100-2-2 Project Proposal

Module Two Project Proposal Guidelines and Rubric

Overview

For this assignment, which supports your final project, you should place yourself in the role of a researcher of human cultures, an anthropologist who is looking from the future back into our world today. You are asked to conduct a thorough analysis of today’s culture via a cultural work, seeking to understand how it represents culture and how it reflects its cultural environment. The work you select here will be used for your analysis in the project. Aside from selecting a work for your project, you will also look to evaluate cultural works of cultures unknown to you.

Prompt

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

1. Select a cultural work from the world around you, one with cultural or historical interest, and briefly describe it in your submission. This cultural work should meet the following conditions:
   • It can take any form and be from any physical modality (visual, aural, tactile, and so on).
   • It should be a form of expression that you might encounter any day, which intrigues you and makes you want to know more about it.
   • It must be a specific work; for example, instead of choosing the American flag, you might elect to analyze the flag at the capitol building in Washington, DC.
   • It should be artificial in nature, with aesthetic design elements.
2. After choosing a cultural work to evaluate, answer the following questions:
   • What characteristics or elements of the work stand out to you?
   • What do you think the creator intended to express?
   • Were they successful?
3. Next, select a cultural work that meets the conditions above but is from a culture unfamiliar to you. Reflect on the value or meaning of studying cultural works from different cultures.
4. Evaluate the impact of diversity in the study of the humanities by considering the following:
   • How does looking through the lens of the humanities affect your understanding of diverse cultural works and the reasons for their creation?
   • How could learning more about cultural works from other cultures equip you with skills or new perspectives for experiences in your life (work, community, family, and so on)?

Guidelines for Submission

Your submission should be a Word document, one to two pages in length, with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and one-inch margins. One source is required. Sources should be cited according to APA style. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

HUM-100-R5001 Perspectives in the Humanities 22EW5

3-2 Short Answer: Virtual Tour

Overview

It is time to take a virtual field trip! For this short answer assignment, visit any of the galleries in the Resources section for this week . Choose two cultural works that catch your attention, and respond to the prompt below.

Prompt

Craft your answer with the considerations below. Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

1. Choose two cultural works that catch your attention. Identify the name of each cultural work and describe why you chose each one. Share a link for each.
2. Compare your chosen works. How do you think each cultural work reflects its time period? Point to specific details that you see to relate them to elements of culture, such as what is valuable or meaningful to a group of people or what elements reflect history, beliefs, experiences, or other effects of culture.
3. Now state a question about key aspects of human culture in relation to one of the cultural works selected. For example, what does a specific urn tell us about the nature of death?
4. Then, briefly explain how you might go about doing research to find an answer to your question. For example, what keywords might you use in your search, where might you begin your research, or whom might you consult ?

Guidelines for Submission

Your submission should be a Word document, one to two pages in length, with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and one-inch margins. Any sources should be cited according to APA style. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

HUM-100-R5001 Perspectives in the Humanities 22EW5

4-2 Project Draft

Overview

For this assignment, which supports your final project, remember that you are assuming the role of a researcher of human cultures, an anthropologist who is looking from the future back into our world today.

In your final project you will analyze a work of human creative expression, describe it, describe its purpose, and assess how creative expression impacts and is impacted by surrounding situations. You will also pose questions about the relationship between culture and expression as well as how values shape and are shaped by expression, and determine how you would go about answering them.

In this assignment you will practice asking the questions and determining how to go about answering them.

Prompt

Given the cultural work you have selected in Module Two, take time to work on the following:

1. Thinking of the work selected, explore how acts of creative expression impact, and are impacted by, the people and situations surrounding them.
2. State questions about the relationship between culture and expression.
3. State questions about your values and how they are shaped by the expression of others.
4. Determine how you would go about answering the questions posed.

Guidelines for Submission

Your submission should be a one- to two-page Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and one-inch margins. Two sources are required, one of which must be academic. Sources should be cited according to APA style. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

HUM-100-R5001 Perspectives in the Humanities 22EW5

HUM 100-7-1 Project

Course Outcomes

In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following outcomes:

• Develop questions about fundamental aspects of human culture that inform personal assumptions, beliefs, and values using evidence from cultural artifacts and systems
• Investigate major developments in the humanities for informing critical questions related to human culture and endeavors
• Determine fundamental approaches to studying the humanities in addressing questions about how cultural artifacts and the culture they are created in have influenced each other
• Articulate the value of the humanities for their impact on contemporary issues focusing on how humans generate unique meanings

Overview

The enduring relevance of the humanities is that they encourage us to consider the “big ideas.” From wondering what culture is to how we go about studying it, and what is the relationship between objects of cultural and historical significance and the culture in which they are created, the study of the humanities is all-encompassing. The relationship between the creators of works of cultural and historical significance and the things they create and how human meaning is generated through cultural works are part of the themes we will be exploring in this assignment. We humans seem driven to express and create in our search to understand and be understood.

Scenario

For the purposes of this assignment, imagine you are a researcher of human cultures, an anthropologist who is looking from the future back to our world today. In this position, you develop a natural curiosity about cultural works and how they represent a particular culture. You are also curious about how cultural works influence the environment in which they exist. You are new at your job, and your first project is to conduct a thorough analysis of today’s culture via a cultural work, looking to understand how it represents culture and how it reflects its cultural environment. The results of your analysis will be used to craft the copy for a brochure accompanying a museum exhibit about cultural works of the current year.

Directions

Analysis of a Cultural Work
As an anthropologist, you will start your task by analyzing the work of human creative expression that you selected in Module Four. With this work in mind, respond to the questions below. Remember, the insights you gain here will be used to write the copy that will go in the museum exhibit brochure.

Answer the following questions:

1. Describe the work in detail. Consider the following:
   1. Where did you see the work?
   2. What elements or characteristics stand out to you?
2. Describe the purpose of the work. Consider the following:
   1. What do you think the creator intended to express?
   2. Were they successful?
3. Use the work to explore how acts of creative expression impact and are impacted by the people and situations that surround them. Consider the following:
   1. What contributions does the work selected make to continuing a dialogue about that culture and the importance of its works?
4. State questions you have after thinking deeply about this work. What more do you want to know regarding the following?
   1. The relationship between culture and expression: What is the relationship between the possible intent of the creator and your own interpretation of its meaning?
   2. Explain how your values have shaped and are shaped by your expression and that of others.
5. Explain how you would approach answering these questions:
   1. What would you study about this work that might address the questions you stated?
   2. Where would you find information to address the questions?Next, draw conclusions about how the work you selected relates to the humanities:
6. Explain why you believe humans have a need to express themselves through created works of cultural and historical significance.
   1. Describe a culture shift or event related to the work you selected. This could be a cultural shift that influenced the creation of the work, or it could be a cultural shift that came about because of it.
   2. Explain how a concept or resource you encountered in this course has informed your explanation. Be sure to cite any sources used.
7. Explain how you think the act of human creative expression impacts and is impacted by the culture in which it was created.
   1. Explain the relationship between human creative expression and the culture in which the work you selected was created using the insights you gained from studying it.
   2. Explain how a concept or resource you encountered in this course has informed your explanation. Be sure to cite any sources used.
8. Explain how you believe human creative expression can impact issues we deal with in the present day (contemporary to your coursework, not the future scenario posed above). Be sure to be specific about the issues you are addressing.
   1. Use the insights you gained from studying the work you selected to explain how creative expression can impact today’s issues.
   2. Explain how a person or concept encountered in your study of the humanities has informed your explanation. Be sure to cite any sources used.

What to Submit

Your submission should be a three- to four-page Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and one-inch margins. Two sources are required, one of which must be academic. Sources should be cited according to APA style. Consult the Shapiro Library APA Style Guide for more information on citations.

Supporting Materials

The following resource supports your work on the project:

Library Guide: HUM 100: Perspectives in the Humanities
Use this library guide to support your research on your creative work.