With the interdisciplinary essay exam coming up, I found last Friday’s lab very helpful because it was a good way to refresh the guidelines and format. Having the chance to see an essay from HUMN 2001 allowed me to get a sense of the amount of detail and knowledge that are necessary to earn a high mark. Last year, I had thought that the interdisciplinary essay was supposed to be concise and right to the point but after some clarification and then further reinforcement from Friday’s lab, I feel like I have a better understanding of the level of cultural knowledge that needs to be expressed in the essay.
At this point, all of the material that we have covered seems a bit overwhelming but I will begin organizing my notes and mapping out some possible essay ideas. We have covered China, Japan, and Baroque, with Neoclassicism and Romanticism coming up in the next two weeks. These cultures each have their own period concepts and my next task is to find a way to create connections between the literature, art, and music to the period concepts within each culture. My mistake last year was a lack of preparation for the essays. I felt disorganized and did not take enough time to prepare. If I can get a sense of which concepts I would like to focus on, I can begin finding the pieces that will exemplify them. I am hoping to maintain a clear line of thought and maintain it throughout the entire essay, so my choice of literature, art, and music pieces will be crucial.
As for mapping out an essay, I am thinking of focusing Japanese culture and its ideas of simplification and closeness to nature. There is an emphasis on valuing the concept of the Way, accepting the natural course of things, and the meaningfulness of simplification within the culture’s pieces. The Great Wave embodies these concepts and because we spent time analyzing it and connecting it to concepts in class, I think I would have an ample amount of information to use. The simple narrative of The Tale of Genji, and the song, Sakura, are prime examples of the power of simplicity. While these pieces may be simple and do not contain a lot of ornamentation, they exemplify the cultural values. I am still trying to figure out a question that will tie it all together, and I would like to focus on the idea of simplicity and how a minimal amount of material can create a maximum effect.
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