Final Paper Assignment

Important Dates:
Paper proposal due: Tuesday, November 15, in class
First two paragraphs due: Thursday, November 17, in class
Oral presentations: Tu/Th/Tu, 11/29, 12/1, & 12/6 (if needed)
Papers due: Thurs, 12/8, at the beginning of class

NOTE: Students have the option of handing in a stamped, self-addressed postcard with their final papers, if they would like for their paper grades & final grades to be mailed to them. As a reminder: This paper will constitute 30% of your final grade.

Paper Topic:
Expanding on the model of critical writing initiated in the first paper, students will present a critical essay with a major research component. Research components may include: in-depth research into an artist’s or collective’s body of work, a comparison of a “new” work with its self-proclaimed artistic precedent or the source of its appropriation; analysis of the historicization and/or vocabularization of particular practices and/or theories in new media art.

These essays must discuss more than one work of art. Students may only write about digital art works by artists discussed in class presentations and readings.

Paper Format & Guidelines:
The paper must be 10-12 pages long. (As always, it should have a title, your name, and page numbers, and it should be stapled.) This paper will require you to reflect critically on more than one work of art, offering a coherent thesis in relationship to the interpretation of the works. Formulation of this argument should be dependent upon the formal components or elements of the works, including a close-reading of the rhetorical relationship between word and image (or the visual and the verbal/linguistic, etc), which will also entail contextualizing the relationship between form and content.

I will be evaluating your ability to formulate a clear thesis, to argue in favor of this thesis, to identify and analyze the works' formal elements, and to synthesize and apply the vocabulary we’ve established through our readings and discussions. Your thesis should make a concise statement about what the works signify and the way in which they do so.

Oral Presentations:
I will email each of you to assign one of the above oral presentation dates. On this day, you must give an 8-10 minute presentation of the work you’ll be discussing. In this presentation, you should introduce us to the work (playing a maximum of three minutes of video, or otherwise projecting or exhibiting the image or work), and present your thesis about the work. The presentation will give you the opportunity to boil down your main argument and the primary evidence for your claim (i.e. sub-points). You should estimate that a full single-spaced page usually takes about 2.5 minutes to read. Therefore, your presentation should convey the content of approximately 2-3 double-spaced pages, allowing time for the display of the work. The goal of this exercise it to get you in the practice of beginning the process of writing by fleshing-out precise, specific claims, and then coming back to fill-in additional observations.

Paper Proposals:
You must turn in a 1-2 page paper proposal, outlining your topic, thesis, the main points you anticipate making in support of your thesis, and three potential research references, at least two of which must be from outside of the syllabus and not from the internet. Proposals must also outline the format of your presentation. (Will you be showing a dvd, a vhs tape, something online, a photocopy…?) These proposals must be turned in, in class, on Tuesday, November 15.

NOTE: We will have a Writing Workshop on the following class day, Thursday, November 17, and students must bring two copies of the first two paragraphs of their paper to class, on that day.