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The authors of In the Company of Crows argue that humans have co-evolved with crows. Rather than write a paper on this topic, please make a creative response to the text: you may write a poem, draw a picture, take a photograph, create a collage, write a (very) short story, create a skit; in short, bring a creative piece or project to seminar. We will combine seminars for the first 30 minutes to view your work. You should prepare a few words to explain your work.
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Turin argues that “aesthetics is parochial ideas professing a spurious generality” (p109). Explain this in your own words, then critique or defend the statement. You may take a scientific, philosophical, social, or other perspective.
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For the first of two seminar papers on The Emperor of Scent, we want you to do something different. Find three objects that have some noticeable smell, put each in a separate brown paper bag, smell each in turn, and describe what you smell. Try not to describe what you know is there--describe, as Turin does, what "notes" you discern, what flavors, what adjectives are evoked for you by the smell. Now, take those same bags to three other people and, without letting them know what is inside, ask them to do the same. Make a table of your results (three smells, four smellers: how did each smeller describe each smell?). Write one paragraph evaluating your results, being sure to refer to the text in your analysis.
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What is Grandin's thesis regarding similarities between animals, children, and autistic adults? Do you agree? Provide direct evidence for your conclusion.
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As you know, we are collecting your synthesis questions each week and keeping them until the end of the quarter. Because the college was closed, we missed the opportunity to discuss the questions. As a result, we would like you to post the question you proposed in those papers, just as you generally post your seminar essays. Then, we would like to you provide a short response to someone else's question using the "Add New Comment" feature of the forum. If you would like to respond to more than one, that is fine, but you must respond to at least one. Please post your question by Thursday, Feb. 14 at 5:00pm. Please respond to a question by Tuesday, Feb 19 at 5:00pm.
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Fox refers to the Forbidden Experiment in her book, Talking Hands. Explain why ABSL (a newly discovered sign language in Israel) is so important given the desire for this sort of experiment. Your evidence should come from the text and draw upon your understanding of the linguistic analysis of a sentence and its parts. We expect you to choose three strong pieces of evidence. Remember that we also expect your essay to be based on a thesis statement which lays out your argument. It is always helpful to visit the Writing Center for help expressing your ideas clearly and making progress in producing expository essays.
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In your essay on Dancing in the Streets, provide three strong evolutionary justifications for this quote: "The urge to transform one's appearance, to dance outdoors, to mock the powerful and embrace perfect strangers is not easy to suppress. (p 260)" Your evidence may be evolutionary of any sort--genetic, cultural; you can find evidence for the cultural fitness of "collective joy" in Ehrenreich's text.
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If Jared Diamond and Bo Graslund were discussing the evolution of human language, what are the areas they may agree on and where might they disagree? Weigh the evidence they provide for their points of view and cite the pages of the texts as you refer to their arguments.
| 21 | 21 | 2 years 4 weeks ago by kitkoi20 |
Alexander (1990) argues that social cooperation and competition within human groups have been primary drivers of our evolution. Choose and defend three pieces of evidence presented by either Alexander or Diamond (1992) that provide support for this position.
| 1 | 1 | 2 years 3 weeks ago by mooroi04 |
Compare the ways in which Golding contrasts Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons by choosing one of the following themes: value of life, ritual, gender, or community. Find particular examples in the text that illustrate your ideas. In your thesis statement, consider how your comparison sheds light on the evolution of modern humans, referring to theories you have learned.
| 1 | 1 | 2 years 2 weeks ago by mooroi04 |
Deutscher argues that we use metaphors in everyday language and prose and that our use of metaphor indicates a movement from the concrete to the abstract in language. This point may make you wonder about scientific writing (a type of prose): do we find metaphor there, too? Choose a passage (3-4 sentences) in your reading for Hauser this week, locate, and analyze the metaphors he uses. How do these metaphors highlight the idea(s) he is presenting? What might possibly be hidden from the reader by the use of these metaphors?
This essay will be focused on analysis of a passage, so you will need to type the passage first, italicizing the metaphors as Deutscher does on p. 119-20. Choose a short passage that has lots of metaphors so that you can think about this question of highlighting and hiding ideas. Work on creating a solid thesis statement as usual. You may, of course, refer to your passage, in effect quoting the metaphors. (Recall that normally we ask you NOT to quote.)
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What is Abram's thesis in chapter 4, "Animism and the Alphabet" of Spell of the Sensuous? If you cannot find a precise statement in the text, then summarize the thesis from your understanding of the chapter as a whole. Support or reject this thesis by drawing on what you have learned so far in linguistics about language structure and in biology about cultural evolution. Focus on 2-3 major points that Abrams makes in your analysis of this chapter.
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After reading the two articles on Liberal Education (Edmundson and Katz), write a personal essay that reflects on what you want your education to provide you. Organize your essay in the following way: First, what are your goals for your education? Are they in fact those of a liberal education? Second, what point or points seem most important from your reading about a liberal education? For example, do you think learning depends (at least in part) on feeling entertained? Finally, how has your academic work at Evergreen helped you attain either the goals of a liberal education, or the goals, if different, that you hope to reach?
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