Gender and sexuality class
social sciences
Description
Write a 3-4 page paper in which you deeply engage with a SPECIFIC PASSAGE from the work of
ONE of Elii Clare. As a developing gender theorist, how would you revise, explore, complicate, or
trouble the idea raised by the author in this passage? What new knowledge can you create in conversation
with your chosen source?
This is a version of paper number one, except now YOU are in conversation with an author, and the
format will not be a dialogue but, rather, a formal academic paper. You will not be impersonating your
source but incorporating their words and ideas into your essay following academic protocols of quoting,
paraphrase, and summary, all with appropriate citation. This assignment asks you to become a gender
theorist yourself, not just imitate one.
I will be looking for your complex thinking about the idea raised in your chosen passage. You might
begin by asking, Why does this passage hold my attention? Why prioritize it? What questions does it raise
for me? Why are those questions tricky, troublesome, or difficult to ask or answer? How does my source
answer them, and why is that answer not sufficient (and therefore why do I need to respond)?
To answer these questions, you will have to demonstrate a thorough understanding of your selected
passage as well as the larger essay in which it appears. What is the author’s thesis, evidence, and line of
reasoning? What is the relationship between your chosen passage and the overall essay? And most
importantly, how does your passage operate as an important site of intervention for your own
thinking/theorizing?
