Essay

Pick one topic: Each essay should be a minimum of 600 words, include a proper introduction, an argument supported by a quality source (see specific prompts), and a proper conclusion. Your essay must incorporate MLA style in-text citations whenever you are utilizing factual information, or ideas that are not commonly known. Here is an example of the accepted in line citation format (Jones 63).

Please provide a complete citation at the end of your essay, and annotate your quality source as per Otis guidelines.

1:Capitalism/ Consumerism: One could argue that the products and ideas provided by mass production and mass media improved the lives of people in the modern era. One could just as easily argue that mass production and mass media produced class divisions and other social inequities that define some of the key critiques of modernity. Think this through using your lectures and class readings. Support your argument with TWO examples of art and/ or design. Find ONE QUALITY source to defend your viewpoint.

2:National Identity/ Colonialism/ Primitivism: French artist, Paul Gauguin, and American photographer, Edward Curtis, represented aspects of the indigenous cultures they were interested in. How are these artists using a western, European lens to imagine and/ or to romanticize the “other?” How does this imagined image of the other simultaneously assert these artists’ sense of their own national identity? Support your writing with a minimum of ONE example from each of these artists. Find ONE quality source for EACH of these artists to defend your argument and analysis.
SAMPLES of annotations for other types of information

Annotate Requirement:

Zemel, Carol. “Sorrowing Women, Rescuing Men: Van Gogh’s Images of Women and Family.” Art History, vol. 10, no. 3, Sept. 1987, p. 351. Art & Architecture Source.

[Author Credentials] Carol Zemel is an art historian with a PhD from Columbia University. She has authored many books and articles in art journals. She was a Professor in the Department of Visual Art & Art History at New York University.

[Audience/Type of Information] Art History is a peer-reviewed journal. The audience for it is art historians and probably undergraduate majors in art history. The article is an in-depth discussion (24 pages) on the topic. It contains only black and white illustrations. Otherwise, the text is mostly text-based with lots of footnotes and a bibliography.

[Bias / Point of View] The author has a feminist focus, and she uses historical information to demonstrate that VG’s paintings of women reflected society views on female sexuality and prostitution. She argues that he viewed prostitutes as fallen women who could be saved through a proper domestic life. The author questions the 19th century male assumption of what all women inherently wanted.

[Content / Coverage / Scope] This article narrowly focuses on Van Gogh’s paintings of women and family and deeply analyzes these.

[Currency of the Source] This article was published in 1987, which was after the feminist theory had been well developed so that perspective is included. There were a couple of other articles about Van Gogh and women that I can also use as a comparison.

[Relevance to Paper] This article discusses the images of women and family in the paintings Vincent van Gogh. I was interested in Van Gogh’s views about women and there was a substantial number of examples and theories of Van Gogh’s view about women that I can use in my paper.