Monday, March 8, 2010
Blog 9: Help!
I think the most challenging part of my paper is framing my argument and putting it into words. I think I found some good key terms such as "liminality", "autonomy", and "rites of passage". Although I think I am headed in the right direction, but I believe I am far from drawing conclusions and making a viable argument. I am having trouble drawing conclusions and the conclusions that I do find are confusing. Also, I am unsure what exactly I am going to do for a primary source. I believe I am going to do interviews. I am also going to look into those movies/books you suggested.
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I think you most need to work on your primary source. I suggested some videos to watch over break (The Graduate and Into the Wild -- both widely available and about the problems of assimilation following college). But you may do best to find a blog about college life by a student. I will look around and see if I can help you with that.
ReplyDeleteOK--I will definitely keep you posted on what I find over break. Thanks for your help.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to work out more clearly the definitions of "liminality" and "rites of passage" and to explain how they are related. You need to really work on your definitions -- synthesizing them from your sources, perhaps even listing the characteristics of liminal states or of people in liminal states, and the ways that rites of passage help liminal folks get to the other side of the threshold. The question I have for you is: "Does college really provide a clear 'rite of passage' through the liminal state of the college years and into full adulthood, as Michael Moffatt has claimed?" One source you should look for is someone who takes issue with Moffatt's view that college is a liminal state or that graduating is a rite of passage. It might not really fit the definition, and if you found a source (or some sources) that said it does not fit the definition of Turner and other classic anthropologists, then you would have an interesting debate, and then you could use your primary source or "case" to decide the question either way.
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting quote from the study "Wasting the Best and the Brightest":
ReplyDelete"A key barrier to implementing more effective policies, programs or strategies is that substance use is still too often dismissed as a normal rite of passage. (See Table 6.1) Nearly four in 10 (37.8 percent) respondents to CASA’s 2005 administrator survey said that the perception that student substance use and abuse is an acceptable part of college life--a normal rite of passage--is the most prominent barrier to implementing more effective policies, programs and strategies..."
The most productive argument might be to show how college does not provide a good "rite of passage" into adulthood by systematically examining the parts of a good rite of passage and showing that college does not have these things. After all, if drinking is the single most widely recognized "rite of passage" on college campuses, then you have to wonder....
ReplyDelete...also, especially in the current economy where graduation does not even guarantee you a job, you have to wonder if college is really fulfilling its imagined role as "rite of passage" into adulthood. Maybe graduates have embraced "the dude" figure in pop culture because it represents a cool way to be unemployed and not "grow up" -- ever....
ReplyDeleteDo you think I could use these somehow as statistics http://www.insidecollege.com/reno/Interesting-College-Traditions/765/list.do
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting the different traditions and rituals that are at each college.