Compare cultural texts from two different periods of time in order to demonstrate any similarities and/or differences between the two eras. The goal is to demonstrate how the same phenomena may occur in two different cultural contexts at the same time, or how the same music-related phenomena may occur across two different historical moments (such as how blackface began in the nineteenth century and continues to be an issue in the twenty-first century). As with the first paper, you’ll need to show how these cultural texts express, reflect, or represent something significant about their cultural context: a particular ideology, social issue, controversy, moment in history, or other such things.
The object of research, or your “cultural text,” must be reproducible and cited in your bibliography. “Reproducible” means that, upon request, you need to be able to give me a video file, web link, etc.
You must develop a primary claim, or “argument,” that needs to be made clear within the first paragraph. Your introduction should include a thesis statement and preview of the main points that will inform the reader what you plan to cover in the body of the paper. You need to support that argument in a clear, orderly manner in the next four pages, and your main points need to be identifiable.
