The new humanities reader pdf

How Can We Characterize Contemporary

Readings:

Joseph Stiglitz, “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society”

(New Humanities Reader)

Franklin Foer, “Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will” (linked on Sakai as

an excerpt from World Without Mind)

Karen Ho, “Biographies of Hegemony” (New Humanities Reader)

In all three essays listed above, we see examples of small “elite” groups that

wield both financial power and significant, sometimes unacknowledged

influence over others. Taking into account the power granted to these

groups by technological factors, regulatory capture, financial dominance, or

even just the widespread perception of elite status, please provide an

answer to the following question in an essay that makes use of evidence

from all three texts:

How can we characterize contemporary

hegemony?

Revised 8/18

Condensed Grading Criteria for Analytic Essays in 355:100, 101, 103, 201, & 301 For extended descriptions of these criteria, visit: http://wp.rutgers.edu/academics/undergraduate/grades

THESIS WORK WITH ASSIGNED TEXTS STRUCTURAL COHERENCE PRESENTATION A

 Articulates original, complex, and specific thesis in essay’s opening

 Confidently acknowledges and incorporates essay’s broader stakes and implications

 May embrace and incorporate questions that complicate or challenge thesis to refine overarching claim

 Confidently close-reads textual evidence to arrive at original interpretive insights

 Clear sense that essay contributes to ongoing intellectual conversation

 May employ unanticipated interpretive contexts to make textual connections

 Compelling progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Transitions confidently communicate relations between essay’s multiple parts

 Deliberate and effective use of topic sentences and other structural “signposts”

 Exhibits evidence of proofreading

 Includes few citational and/or formatting errors

 May exhibit eloquent prose style

B+

 Articulates original, independent thesis in essay’s opening

 Advances conceptually complex interpretive position

 Begins to acknowledge essay’s broader stakes and implications

 Engages a variety of textual evidence with confidence and authority

 Cites texts to both support and complicate or refine thesis

 Exhibits willingness to take interpretive risks when close-reading and making connections

 Consistent progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Effective use of topic sentences and transitions

 May begin to incorporate explicit structural “signposts”

B

 Articulates thesis in essay’s opening  Advances clear interpretive position  Thesis may be conceptually limited or

developed in a repetitive way

 Engages a variety of textual evidence  Cites texts to provide support for thesis  Takes some interpretive risks when close-

reading and making connections

 Progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Structure of essay is deliberate and logical  Clear effort to use topic sentences and

transitions throughout

C+

 Evidence of emerging independent thesis, but not clearly articulated in essay’s opening

 Takes interpretive position at least once, and begins to sustain that position throughout essay

 Thesis may be implicit or underdeveloped

 Includes several moments of close-reading and uses adequate textual evidence

 Begins to engage more complicated ideas in texts

 Connections made within a text or between texts may be implicit or underdeveloped

 Accurate sense of purpose and conventions of a paragraph

 Begins to exhibit progressive development of thesis throughout paragraphs

 Topic sentences and transitions begin to emerge, but may be underdeveloped or inconsistently employed

C

 Takes interpretive position at least once  Thesis may be imprecise or general  Thesis may emerge at end of essay

following discussion of textual evidence

 Makes effort to close-read at least once  Accurate reading comprehension and

appropriate use of textual evidence  Begins to make valid connections within a

text or between texts

 Basic sense of purpose and conventions of a paragraph

 Progressive development between paragraphs may be implicit or unclear

 Some paragraphs may begin to exhibit emerging topic sentences

 Exhibits little or no evidence of proofreading

 Syntactical or semantic errors consistently impede meaning

 Inadequate or missing citation of sources

NP

 No thesis in evidence  Emerging thesis may be overwhelmed by

summary, paraphrase, or generalization  Lacks meaningful connection between texts

and emerging thesis  Demonstrates insufficient revision from

rough draft to final draft

 Little or no evidence of close-reading  Miscomprehends or misinterprets texts  Overgeneralizes about texts  Privileges writer’s opinions, anecdotes, or

extraneous material

 Inaccurate or unclear sense of purpose and conventions of a paragraph

 Minimal or no progressive development between paragraphs

 Employs few or no topic sentences  May rely on “five-paragraph essay” model