Essay One: Slavery in New York
Essay One is Due Wednesday, March 1
I will read drafts before February 27
(3-4 Pages)
For Essay One, you will respond to your visit to the New York Historical
Society’s Slavery Exhibition.
Your primary goal for the essay is to discuss how the museum creates the memory and experience of slavery for the museum visitor: you.
In order to generate thoughts about this process, you will specifically address at least two material objects from the exhibition—a washing bowl, a map, an interactive ‘well,’ an old advertisement, a photograph, a short film, or any other physical piece of evidence or connection to the past. You will write about how a particular object can link the present (now) with the past (then). You will write about how the object/piece creates a material link to the past, and what that means for you.
You will also address at least one of the ‘rooms’ the museum devoted to the slavery exhibition. Why did the museum divide the exhibition up into different parts? What part (room) did you find the most effective? Why?
This may lead to a discussion about your experience in the museum itself. How did people react to the exhibition while you were there? How did the museum alter, control, or influence how you interpreted the exhibition? What parts of the exhibition were beyond the control or influence of the museum?
Finally, I want you to consider how the museum acts as an institution, literally, of memory itself. What roles does the museum play, and do all museums play, in the formation of cultural memory? What other links to the past do we have besides the museum? What connections to the past exist outside the museum? To what degree does the museum contain the past? To what degree does the past exceed the capacity of the museum?
Your introduction paragraph, which you should typically write last (or at least revise after writing your paper), should focus all these thoughts by relating your travel to the museum in the first person, and style it like a personal experience essay. You do not need a thesis, but you should summarize your thoughts as best you can, and emphasize the ideas that you believe are the most important in your essay.
If you have space and inclination, I want you to spend some time thinking (and writing) about what this exhibit meant to you as a New Yorker.
When you attend, take pen and paper.
Here is the information about admission and location:
Admission (be sure to bring your student ID)
Members: FreeAdults: $10 Seniors, Students and Teachers: $5 Children 12 and under accompanied by an adult are free
Directions:
The New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park WestTel. (212) 873-3400
Subway: B or C to 81st StreetBus: M10 to 77th Street; M79 to 81st and CPW
I will read drafts before February 27
(3-4 Pages)
For Essay One, you will respond to your visit to the New York Historical
Society’s Slavery Exhibition.
Your primary goal for the essay is to discuss how the museum creates the memory and experience of slavery for the museum visitor: you.
In order to generate thoughts about this process, you will specifically address at least two material objects from the exhibition—a washing bowl, a map, an interactive ‘well,’ an old advertisement, a photograph, a short film, or any other physical piece of evidence or connection to the past. You will write about how a particular object can link the present (now) with the past (then). You will write about how the object/piece creates a material link to the past, and what that means for you.
You will also address at least one of the ‘rooms’ the museum devoted to the slavery exhibition. Why did the museum divide the exhibition up into different parts? What part (room) did you find the most effective? Why?
This may lead to a discussion about your experience in the museum itself. How did people react to the exhibition while you were there? How did the museum alter, control, or influence how you interpreted the exhibition? What parts of the exhibition were beyond the control or influence of the museum?
Finally, I want you to consider how the museum acts as an institution, literally, of memory itself. What roles does the museum play, and do all museums play, in the formation of cultural memory? What other links to the past do we have besides the museum? What connections to the past exist outside the museum? To what degree does the museum contain the past? To what degree does the past exceed the capacity of the museum?
Your introduction paragraph, which you should typically write last (or at least revise after writing your paper), should focus all these thoughts by relating your travel to the museum in the first person, and style it like a personal experience essay. You do not need a thesis, but you should summarize your thoughts as best you can, and emphasize the ideas that you believe are the most important in your essay.
If you have space and inclination, I want you to spend some time thinking (and writing) about what this exhibit meant to you as a New Yorker.
When you attend, take pen and paper.
Here is the information about admission and location:
Admission (be sure to bring your student ID)
Members: FreeAdults: $10 Seniors, Students and Teachers: $5 Children 12 and under accompanied by an adult are free
Directions:
The New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park WestTel. (212) 873-3400
Subway: B or C to 81st StreetBus: M10 to 77th Street; M79 to 81st and CPW
posted by Jrc at 3:47 PM
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