MUST DO – You must provide three or four body paragraphs, each of which is focused around one main idea stated in a topic sentence, and centered around the connection between direct quotes from both authors.
ANALYTIC ESSAY 4 (AE4)
FINAL DRAFT (1700 words):
Armstrong, Karen. “Homo religiosus.” The New Humanities Reader Edition 6e. Edited by Richard Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2016. pp. 2-21.
Dillard, Annie. “Seeing.” Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper Perennial, 1974. pp. 16–36.
Sousanis, Nick. “The Shape of Our Thoughts.” Unflattening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. pp. 50-67.
INSTRUCTIONS
Speaking of linguistic representation in his graphic essay “The Shape of Our Thoughts,” Nick Sousanis claims, “Its wholeness conceals its limitations and offers the impression that it’s complete” (Sousanis 57). Similarly, Karen Armstrong in “Homo religiosus” describes “an appreciation of the limits of language and understanding” (Armstrong 18). Annie Dillard at one point says that “Seeing is very much a matter of verbalization” (Dillard 33) but also discusses seeing “without utterance” (35). All of these writers discuss language, its limits, and foreground the importance of the imagination.
For your fourth analytic essay assignment, write an essay in response to the following question:
What role does the imagination play in determining language’s limits?
Your essay should put forward an original thesis that responds to this question, drawing from the terminology and examples discussed by Armstrong, Dillard, and Sousanis to do so.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Have you considered how to specify your terms to respond to the prompt?
Imagination:
Is the imagination fantastical? playful? serious? mythical? rational? descriptive? emotional? expressive? attentive or inattentive? Interested or disinterested? conscious or unconscious?
Does it play a role in ritual? in expectation? in convention? in story? in identity? in perception? in empathy? in communication? in logical understanding?
Language:
What do languages allow us to do? How well do they accomplish this?
What different kinds and modes of languages do you see in the readings? What relation do they have to imagination?
What counts as a language? Is it verbal? spoken or written or thought? facial or gestural? Is it linear? metaphoric? imagistic? narrative? persuasive? factual? impressionistic? personal or communal? standardized?
Limits:
Does a limit disable or enable? To the extent that language has limits, is this confining or expanding?
What aspects of language can be limiting or limited? signs? concepts? abstraction? mediation? conventions of structure and sense? descriptions? expressiveness? representability? thinkability? universality of cultural habits? experientiality? presence? accuracy? honesty? communication? connection? embodiment? self-reflection?
What is the ineffable? Are there aspects of experience that remain outside of language? If so, why?
FINAL DRAFT REQUIREMENTS
Your essay should include an introductory paragraph that introduces your main themes and your readings, and builds up to your thesis statement.
You must provide three or four body paragraphs, each of which is focused around one main idea stated in a topic sentence, and centered around the connection between direct quotes from both authors.
You must include a concluding paragraph that distills the progression of your claims and explores the broader implications of your argument.
PRESENTATION
Please proofread your work.
Quotations should be carefully transcribed, punctuated, and attributed with parenthetical citations.
For bibliographic conventions, use MLA style.
Use 1-inch margins on all sides, double-spacing, and 12-point Times New Roman font.
Number all pages.
Your submission should have your name, the date, and course information on the first page.
Submit your work via Canvas in either .doc or .docx or .pdf format.
Google docs and .pages files are not acceptable. Email submissions are not acceptable.
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