Ideas Draft #6

Tuesday (3/3) p.m. = Ideas draft
Sunday (3/8) p.m. = Working draft
Friday (3/13) p.m. = Final draft


Look at the timestamp on this post... I'm pretty likely to make some mistakes here, so please let me know when you find them.

1) Read the prompt carefully.

2) What is the "arts committee" the prompt refers to, and who's on it? How does this effect your rhetorical strategy?

3) What is the racial climate at UCI? You do not need to limit your answers to black-white relations specifically. Note: there is no such thing as a "race" from a scientific standpoint, though there are obviously small genetic differences between groups of human beings. You are more genetically similar to me - about 99.99% - than to someone from the island of Vanuatu or from deep in the Amazon jungle - about 99.9%. Geographical isolation is the key to genetic differentiation, and given that we're all here in a major international urban zone, it can be safely said that we're all from ancestors who got around quite a bit. "Race" is mainly a social construction, but in this way we might say that it does really exist. I mean, "the economy" is a social construction too, and look how that affects our lives.

4) What would be different about performing Porgy and Bess at UCI than anywhere else? I mean, what would the specific context of the performance be?

5) Find one element of racial stereotyping (of blacks) in popular culture from 1855-1955. Maybe a Google Image search would help. Explain what you found.

6) Identify one element of racial stereotyping (of anyone) in popular culture in 2009. Explain.

7) What are the three strongest arguments for staging the play that came up in class debate?

8) What are the three strongest arguments for not staging the play that came up in class debate?

9) Find one primary source related to Porgy and Bess from the 1930s (other than the play itself). Who wrote it? What is the thesis? Pull one key quotation that you might use, and paraphrase it.

10) Repeat with a second primary source.

11) Repeat with a third primary source.

12) Find one secondary source related to Porgy and Bess from the 1950s-2000s. Who wrote it? What is the thesis? Pull one key quotation that you might use, and paraphrase it.

13) Research one performance of Porgy and Bess other than the Trevor Nunn version on the DVD or the first run on Broadway. What was unique about this performance? How would its audience have thought about the musical, specifically the racial aspect?

14) Identify two scenes in the musical that could/will be evidence for your argument. Pull a key bit of dialogue from each one, and explain why it could be interpreted as evidence for either side of the issue.

15) Identify two key bits of Porgy and Bess that you can analyze on the basis of the music only, rather than the dialogue, in a way that could somehow fit into your paper. You might use the same scenes as the previous question, and you might not.