Category: Sociology

RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson
Your paper should be ten pages long, double spaced. It is due May 8th at 4PM. 
Because the first book of the Mars trilogy is quite long and detailed, I have
limited your paper to analyzing that book.
1. Describe the utopian vision that inspired the first settlers to colonize Mars. Why did the
scientific transformation of Mars erupt into violent political conflict over how to best
build colonies on the planet.
2. Briefly explain terraforming. Why is terraforming essential to the survival of humans on
Mars?
3. What are the conflicting visions for the future of Mars between Chalmers and Boone that
leads Chalmers to have Boone murdered.
4. What are the transnationals and why Is it essential for them to control Mars? How does
their conquest of Mars serve as an allegory for imperialism on Earth.
Please use direct quotes from the book “Red Mars”by Kim Stanley Robinson in your essay and cite all of the work and make sure each quote is cited with the page number as well. This essay should only be about the “Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson book. Not about any of the other books. 

ASSIGNMENT: Add 6 more songs to your mixtape. You will find a song to illustrate ONE thesis statement per week from Weeks 9-14. The thesis must relate to either the making of the song or the content of the song. You will be graded on the strength of your argument linking song and thesis. Mixtape Side B is worth 20% of your final grade.
To be considered for full credit, your mixtape must include:
A link to a publicly available YouTube, Spotify, or similar playlist with all SIX tracks included;
THREE paragraph statement for each song relating to ONE thesis (below), with at least ONE reading cited;
At least THREE songs derived from your Liner Notes genre.
BONUS: For 3 additional points, record your complete Mixtape (sides A & B) to a cassette with cover art, including your name and track listing.
Submit the assignment by bCourses, inclusive of all the requirements above;
Submit cassette between May 6-8 to my mailbox in the Sociology Department:
Social Sciences Building 410; open from 9a-11am & 1p-3p ONLY.
EXAMPLE STATEMENT:
Week 13, Thesis #1:Momus – “Michelin Man”Links to an external site.
The song Michelin Man by Momus demonstrates how copyright laws based on intellectual property can limit the range of symbols an artist may use, even when used in parody, and thus preventing the emergence of new creative expressions using existing cultural references. After portraying the Michelin Man mascot as a hyper-sexual cyborg, Momus was sued by the Michelin company, and copies of the album were recalled by the label under threat of further lawsuits (Shepherd 1999). Subsequent versions of the album excluded the song and Michelin-themed cover art.
Kembrew McLeod (2005) argues that modern copyright laws have become overly restrictive on pop music. In particular, laws designed to protect musicians and the companies that own their music end up interfering with the very practices which allowed pop music to emerge as the dominant cultural phenomenon of the late 20th and early 21st century. This includes practices such as collage, in the case of sampling, as well as quotation or parody, for example, in Momus’ satirical version of the Michelin Man mascot. Both collage and parody are examples of “fair use” – a legal theory enshrined to protect creators from violating copyright, by stating that reasonable sampling or quotation of copyrighted material may persist without permission of the copyright holder. However, in practice, the cost of litigating copyright cases means that wealthy companies can often win lawsuits through the attrition of impoverished artists, rather than through due process (McLeod 2005: 80).
The case of Michelin Man demonstrates McLeod’s concern that copyright laws turn would-be creators into a captive audience for corporate-approved pop culture (2005: 92). McLeod (2005: 86) argues that fair use protections for sampling allows individuals the agency to create pop culture by remixing (or mashing-up) existing cultural symbols into new arrangements, thus creating new forms of meaning. In this sense, Momus’ use of the Michelin Man figure allowed an effective way to communicate a new idea by placing a familiar character into a different context. However, Momus’ art was suppressed not because it could be mistaken as an official statement by the Michelin company, but simply because it violated Michelin’s desire to maintain a particular image in popular culture. Thus, Michelin could use its wealth and legal power to exploit copyright law to deny fair use and prevent creative expressions that corporate executives dislike.
McLeod, Kembrew. 2005. Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono, and My Long and Winding Path as a Copyright Activist‐Academic. Popular music and Society, 28(1): 79-93.
Shepherd, Fiona. 1999. “The world can change in a matter of Momus.” The Scotsman. ECM Publishers, Inc.
THESIS STATEMENTS (select ONE from each week):
Week 9: Symbols
Symbols work through a dynamic process of encoding and decoding (Hebdige).
Hegemony constrains how symbols can be used but does not define meaning for all audiences (Hebdige).
Symbolic resources restrict the range of identities that an individual may adopt (Bayton).
Week 10: Politics
Communities use symbolic resources to do politics with music (Rose).
Artistic expressions are interpreted differently depending on the author’s identity (Rose).
Social structures provide minority actors with a reduced range of identities (Venrooij).
Week 11: Representations
Audiences consume representations that extend beyond music (Lumumba-Kasongo).
Artists enact a subject position to define collective representations (Lipsitz).
Moral desires for diversity are often undermined by self-serving interests (De Laat and Stuart).
Week 12: Technics
The sound of music includes the artifacts of media technology (Sterne).
Technology shifts power from intermediaries to infrastructure (Siciliano).
Digital platforms encourage the quantification of musical value (Siciliano).
Week 13: Ownership
Intellectual property challenges prior norms of cultural reproduction (McLeod).
The privatization of cultural products threatens musical innovation (McLeod).
Investors purchase and license artistic catalogs based on financial calculation (Greene).
Week 14: Music Sociology
Music is a social practice with no objective form (DeNora).
Genre develops in stages which make it hard to isolate social trends (Lena).
People form emotional attachments to the aesthetic qualities of music (DeNora).

Please review the article in the weekly assignment folder by Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.  He is considered a leading thinker in the food movement.  The food movement seeks to foster the reconnection with real food by supporting local farmers and consumption of artificially modified foods. 
As  you read the “Six Rules for Eating” article,  please answer the following: 
1) What foods were available to your great-grandparents or grandparents? 
2) Do you find it easy to follow the six rules for eating? 
3) If not, what makes it hard?
Six Rules For Eating Wisely
By Michael PollanTIME Magazine,
Once upon a time Americans had a culture of food to guide us through the increasingly treacherous landscape of food choices: fat vs. carbs, organic vs. conventional, vegetarian vs. carnivorous. Culture in this case is just a fancy way of saying “your mom.” She taught us what to eat, when to eat it, how much of it to eat, even the order in which to eat it. But Mom’s influence over the dinner menu has proved no match for the $36 billion in food-marketing dollars ($10 billion directed to kids alone) designed to get us to eat more, eat all manner of dubious neofoods, and create entire new eating occasions, such as in the car. Some food culture.
I’ve spent the past five years exploring this daunting food landscape, following the industrial food chain from the Happy Meal back to the not-so-happy feedlots in Kansas and cornfields in Iowa where it begins and tracing the organic food chain back to the farms. My aim was simply to figure out what–as a nutritional, ethical, political and environmental matter–I should eat. Along the way, I’ve collected a few rules of thumb that may be useful in navigating what I call the Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Don’t eat anything your great-great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Imagine how baffled your ancestors would be in a modern supermarket: the epoxy-like tubes of Go-Gurt, the preternaturally fresh Twinkies, the vaguely pharmaceutical Vitamin Water. Those aren’t foods, quite; they’re food products. History suggests you might want to wait a few decades or so before adding such novelties to your diet, the substitution of margarine for butter being the classic case in point. My mother used to predict “they” would eventually discover that butter was better for you. She was
Six Rules For Eating Wisely about:reader?url=https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/six-rules-for…
right: the trans-fatty margarine is killing us. Eat food, not food products.
Avoid foods containing high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It’s not just in cereals and soft drinks but also in ketchup and bologna, baked goods, soups and salad dressings. Though HFCS was not part of the human diet until 1975, each of us now consumes more than 40 lbs. a year, some 200 calories a day. Is HFCS any worse for you than sugar? Probably not, but by avoiding it you’ll avoid thousands of empty calories and perhaps even more important, cut out highly processed foods–the ones that contain the most sugar, fat and salt. Besides, what chef uses high-fructose corn syrup? Not one. It’s found only in the pantry of the food scientist, and that’s not who you want cooking your meals.
Spend more, eat less. Americans are as addicted to cheap food as we are to cheap oil. We spend only 9.7% of our income on food, a smaller share than any other nation. Is it a coincidence we spend a larger percentage than any other on health care (16%)? All this “cheap food” is making us fat and sick. It’s also bad for the health of the environment. The higher the quality of the food you eat, the more nutritious it is and the less of it you’ll need to feel satisfied.
Pay no heed to nutritional science or the health claims on packages. It was science that told us margarine made from trans fats is better for us than butter made from cow’s milk. The more I learn about the science of nutrition, the less certain I am that we’ve learned anything important about food that our ancestors didn’t know. Consider that the healthiest foods in the supermarket–the fresh produce–are the ones that don’t make FDA-approved health claims, which typically festoon the packages of the most highly processed foods. When Whole Grain Lucky Charms show up in the cereal aisle, it’s time to stop paying attention to health claims.
Shop at the farmers’ market. You’ll begin to eat foods in season, when they are at the peak of their nutritional value and flavor, and you’ll cook, because you won’t find anything processed or microwavable. You’ll also be supporting farmers in your community, helping defend the countryside from sprawl, saving oil by eating food produced nearby and teaching your children that a carrot is a
Six Rules For Eating Wisely about:reader?url=https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/six-rules-for…
root, not a machine-lathed orange bullet that comes in a plastic bag. A lot more is going on at the farmers’ market than the exchange of money for food.
How you eat is as important as what you eat. Americans are fixated on nutrients, good and bad, while the French and Italians focus on the whole eating experience. The lesson of the “French paradox” is you can eat all kinds of supposedly toxic substances (triple crà ̈me cheese, foie gras) as long as you follow your culture’s (i.e., mother’s) rules: eat moderate portions, don’t go for seconds or snacks between meals, never eat alone. But perhaps most important, eat with pleasure, because eating with anxiety leads to poor digestion and bingeing. There is no French paradox, really, only an American paradox: a notably unhealthy people obsessed with the idea of eating healthily. So, relax. Eat Food. And savor it.

Video Link:  https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
Book:  Dalton Conley (2021), and is titled You May Ask Yourself.  It’s the 7th edition, published by W.W. Norton.
Watch the video Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie, and then write a discussion post addressing the topic of the “single stories” that exist today.
Start by briefly defining what is meant by the term”a single story.”
Next, describe an example of a single story believed in the United States—other the one in the video.
Finally, considering what you have read in Chapter 1, what is one possible way to address the problem of people believing such single stories?  Look to address the ways we can work to dispel dangerous myths and show the rich complexities in our world.

Select one out of the four questions below, and present, review and discuss it in at least 10 well thought out sentences addressing all parts of the question by Wednesday. Then by Friday of the week, review classmates posts and respond to TWO classmates on their post with 5 well out sentences. Begin by posting (copy and paste) the complete question you are addressing, skip a line and then write your post. 1. Discuss the nature of political crimes
2. Discuss the history of terrorism
3. Discuss election fraud: the motive, the benefit, and the morality
4. Discuss what motivates a terrorist
Select one out of the four questions below, and present, review and discuss it in at least 10 well thought out sentences addressing all parts of the question by Wednesday. Then by Friday of the week, review classmates posts and respond to TWO classmates on their post with 5 well out sentences. Begin by posting (copy and paste) the complete question you are addressing, skip a line and then write your post. 1. Discuss the history of development of white collar and green collar crimes
2. Discuss employee fraud and embezzlement
3. Discuss the concept of chiseling (and various aspects of chiseling)
4. Discuss corporate crime

Concepts to use and define for Goffman:  Dramaturgical analysis, presentation of self, impression management, front stage, back stage, idealization, tact, embarrassment, leaking.
Concepts to use and define for Mead:  Self, Imitation Stage, Play Stage, Game Stage, Generalized Other, significant other, dualistic self, I, me.
Include discussion of three macro systems of inequality that influence your past, present, or future “Self.”

Complete the quiz in a Word document. This is an open book quiz. The answer to each question must be 100-125 words.

Hi, I have a Research Proposal LAB assingment that is due this Saturday, May 11th. For my last LAB, my assignment was a small scale literature review. I wrote one, but it was not enough for my professor, I have attached that small scale literature review to here, “Beyond the Pixie Dust” Here is her feedback from that assignment: BODY: The body of your literature review is where you demonstrate your synthesis and analysis of the literature. Do not just summarize the literature; also, don’t organize your literature review by source—that is, one paragraph for source A, one paragraph for source B, etc. That approach doesn’t tell your reader how to put those facts together, it doesn’t highlight points of agreement or contention, or how each study builds on the work of others. In short, it does not demonstrate critical thinking. Instead, organize the body by theme: The first paragraph in the body of the literature review is an introduction, describing how you will organize the review (e.g. by theme, which should be based on the articles’ key findings / results;
the rest of the body of the review should include 3-5 paragraphs that describe the various themes that you identified comparing, contrasting and/or connecting the key findings of the articles you’ve selected for the review. Please note that in your discussion of key themes and findings across articles, you are to synthesize rather than summarize these articles, focusing on their commonalities and differences based on key findings, research design, also gaps or controversies identified in these articles. Remember that you are not to merely summarize the findings of these sources you reference; you are to critically synthesize and assess the scholarship, which requires that you examine their methodological approach, the types of questions they focus on, how they go about answering them (research methods, sampling strategy, who/what they included and why; and how these approaches inform your research approach. If you do not include these crucial aspects, it is not a literature review but a summative essay, which is something entirely different.
You cannot have a limitations section; you have to discuss the limitations of this scholarship as you are introducing it, not at the end before the conclusion; in this discussion you still avoid talking about the research methods they used, which I remember emphasizing during our meeting. I said: focus your “reading” of these articles on the research methods as this is what I will be looking for in assessing your ability to do this research
Please note that for the final project, the literature review section includes 10 empirical articles, and if you submit a version of this literature review, you will not secure a passing grade for the final.
Conclusion is underdeveloped
CONCLUSION: Summarize the major findings of the sources that you reviewed, remembering to keep the focus on your topic. Evaluate the current state of scholarship in this area (ex. flaws or gaps in the research, inconsistencies in findings). Identify any areas for further research. Conclude by making a connection between your topic and some larger area of study such as the discipline. References are not properly formatted following ASA style
Now moving on to this Research Proposal that is due Saturday, I have the instructions here: Assignment: As your final project, you will write a research proposal on a topic of your choosing. Writing a research proposal is a complex tasks that entails the following skills and competencies:
Ability to apply basic research skills and thinking in designing a comprehensive research study; Proficiency in conducting a comprehensive review of the literature (“lit review”) to ensure a research problem has not already been answered [or you may determine the problem has been answered ineffectively] and, in so doing, become better at locating scholarship related to your topic; Competency in the practice identifying the logical steps that must be taken to accomplish one’s research goals;
Ability to critically review, examine, & consider the use of different methods for gathering and analyzing data related to the research problem; and,
Nurture a sense of inquisitiveness within yourself and to help see yourself as an active participant in the process of doing scholarly research.
Guidelines: Your research proposal must include the following components (see previous modules for required readings and templates)
Introduction: As with any introduction, you must (a) introduce your research topic, research question, (b) the rationale for doing this research (the “gap” in the literature, the problem or puzzle you are trying to solve, what are the theoretical / empirical motivations for this study), and (c) a general overview of what is to come in the proposal. Literature Review: By reviewing the literature you are building a story about what has been done and what needs to be done; here you are to identify key debates, themes, and findings of PREVIOUS RESEARCH that will inform YOUR RESEARCH / provide rationale for doing your study. In reading and summarizing individual articles/sources in your literature review, you are to answer the following questions: (a) What question is the author trying to answer? (b) What theories is she informed by (summarize)? (c) What data or methods does the author(s) use? (d) What are the key findings? (e) What further research/limitations does the author(s) point out? How does your research fit in? Description of Methods: In discussing your methodological approach, address the following questions: What sources or data would you need to answer those questions? What methods do you propose using to find the sources or collect the data? What methods do you propose using to analyze them? Why are those sources, data, and methods best suited to answering each of the research questions that you posed above? In your description of your research methodology, you should identify a) the methods you will use (diary studies, focus groups, interviews, surveys, etc) and how your methods are appropriate / fitting for your research question; b) sampling strategy and procedure (who will be included / excluded in your study and why; how many and why; probabilistic vs non-probabilistic sampling and why; recruitment strategy. HERE YOU MUST CONSULT AND REFERENCE REQUIRED READINGS, at least 5 required readings, to illustrate comprehension and ability to apply methodological insights into your research design. Project Summary / Conclusion: This is where you provide a brief summary of your whole project, including what you are looking for (research topic and research question), why it is significant (rationale for further research, based on lit review insights), how you will go about it (methodological considerations), and what outcomes you anticipate.
**Just to note, I am a Sociology major, I would appreciate if this essay was written ASA, but it isn’t required, I could always revise that myself. 
My research question is: How does the portrayal of the manic pixie dream girl in popular media contribute to the gender stereotypes against women? 

If you can do the interview with familar things for me. Like a Mental Health Case Manager Position, Counselor Something that is in my realm. Please. Any questions please ask.

The instructions and guidelines are in the file below. If you cannot access the file, please let me know via chat. Thank you.