Reading the proposals you submitted on Monday suggested to me that many of you either chose to disregard the requirement that your topic be connected to our course theme, Identity and Representation, or simply don’t understand what those terms mean. As a result of this, many of you still need to choose an appropriate topic and craft a meaningful research question. To help you with your thinking, I am providing a list of 20 ideas that may get your creative juices flowing and help you choose a topic that is meaningful to you, engaging to research, and ripe for analysis. These are not fleshed-out topics, just ideas of directions that might prove fruitful:
- internalized prejudice/ self-hate
- sexualization of young girls in media
- voter suppression and discrimination
- schools to prisons pipeline
- analysis of a particular movie/tv show/book and its representation of a particular ethnic/racial/national group.
- homelessness in NYC
- children growing up in shelters or in foster care
- migrant “caravan”
- Native American identity/ life on reservations today
- body image (and a particular group)
- K-Pop – exporting Korean culture?
- Something about food and identity
- Tattoos/ Body Modification and identity
- Plastic Surgery and Race/Gender/Ethnicity
- Beauty standards in U.S.
- White Nationalism
- Bilingualism in Education
- Gender fluidity
- “Me Too” movement
- Young people and political activism
Please be aware that research papers that do not fit within the parameters I’ve described, both in class and in the written prompt that was distributed, will not receive passing grades.