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Short Essays and Responses

Short Essay 7 (due Dec. 6)

We’ve now read a good deal of The Case for Trump.

Using the readings, respond to the statement in bold below. You may take any position on it you like; just be sure that you make a case for your position based on the readings.

Hanson’s reasoning concerning the 2016 election is weak and indefensible. Trump was an exceptionally unprepared and incompetent candidate who was elected simply because racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia are so rampant in the US. Further, there is no evidence that there is a ‘cultural elite’ or an ‘Ancien Regime’ as he describes them.

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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions

on pop music getting dumber

Some of you asked me for more info on this theme. Here’s a write-up of a study done some years ago. Also a video summary of some of the same information. (and here’s the actual study). Here’s another more recent piece citing some other research on this. I don’t know if anything else along the lines of the big 2012 study has been done in the past 7 years, but I don’t see any obvious reasons to suspect that the trend has reversed recently.

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Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions Reading and Film Presentations and Discussion Short Essays and Responses

On Final Portfolios

Let’s make the due date Wednesday, December 18.  This will give me enough time to get all of them graded in two classes in time for grades to go in on the following Monday.  You can email it to me as a pdf or Word document.  PLEASE be sure it is in one or another of these formats and that it is attached to your email. 

You should include a heading at the beginning of the document that includes the following information:

  1. Your name
  2. The total word count

You should also be sure that each separate text in the portfolio has an individual title—and something more interesting and useful than just e.g., “Short Essay #5 revised.”

Here are the three substantive levels on which I will be grading the portfolios:

  1. Elegance and clarity of writing (which is typically an indirect indicator of effort, since almost no one writes with great elegance and clarity without serious revision).
  2. Familiarity and engagement with course materials/texts (these should not be quoted directly, at least not extensively—instead, paraphrase and use parenthetical citations to let me know what you’re citing)
  3. Evidence that you have consulted responses from other students or from me in your revisions (or, if you use texts that did not get substantial attention from other readers, evidence of significant revision when compared to the original text)
Categories
Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions

Some recent survey data on attitudes toward President Trump and on racism in the US more generally

American likely voters just about split on whether Trump is a racist (47%) or his opponents are accusing him of racism merely for political gain (49%). Almost a third of Democrats believe that any criticism of a racial minority politician by a white person is racist.

Categories
Catch-All/Student Discussion Questions

Victor Davis Hanson on ‘Uncommon Knowledge’

Discussing the book you are presently reading.