A Sample Prompt from Introduction to Global Studies
Identify either (1) an ONGOING process, (2) a RELATIONSHIP between multiple people, or (3) an intensively global and contested SPACE in your lived environment (UVM, home, or a third place, including one abroad, if you wish, as long as you have astute and detailed notes or observations) that is shaped by globalization to analyze in great depth. Examples of such a critical issue could be complex cultural relationships in a neighborhood or school, tensions in Burlington between refugees and poor longtime residents over recycle scavenging, medical/hospital issues among undocumented workers, debates over the shape the interpretive materials for a historic downtown should take (say in a place like Providence RI), questions of Islam or Muslim refugees in American society, the complex threads of labor and marketing in the production of some sort of food, or domestic labor in New York homes. This has to be something real to the firsthand observation of which you have access, not just ads on TV, a website, a certain band’s music, a show or movie, or the story of your own family alone. Make your topic good and not lame. It should be something messy and complex that you’d want to read about in a short story or a New Yorker article. As PRIMARY SOURCES you could use your own observations and experience, newspaper articles or legal documents, pamphlets or brochures, AM radio broadcasts, rallies or speeches, and much more. Speak about all the possible sorts of globalization that are present in the process or configuration you’ve identified. These might include migration, political globalization, economic globalization/markets, cultural globalization/ideas, legacies of empire or slavery, embodied realities, new identities (like an indigenous group) and more. Write an essay about how and why this thing is globalizations as opposed to anything else, and what is new and different about it in the global era. You must use at least four core sources as comparisons, analogues, or supporting texts, and at least three external SCHOLARLY sources talking about something that at least touches upon your topic. The paper must be at least FIVE FULL PAGES of text, not just on to the fifth page. You must have a bibliography but the page count must not include the bibliography (nor the title space). Normal margins, 12 point font. All sources cited. Provide a thesis and good writing in form and content and structure.