MASCULINITIES MANIFESTO
Guidelines
You are expected to write with a thesis and argument, providing support for your
assertions by citing specific quotes or ideas from your reading material. However, quotations should be used discretely to illustrate your argument. Your thesis statement must be underlined or in bold text.
Make sure to have an original title for the paper.
Use parenthesis to make in-text citations. A Works Cited page needs to follow the essay. A
failure to acknowledge sources through citations constitutes plagiarism.
The paper is to be 8-10 pages in length (not including Works Cited), double-spaced using
Times New Roman 12-point font, with one-inch margins. Use the Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). You can also catch the following link and go to Citations and References under General Specifications to see citation models
http://signsjournal.org/for-authors/author-guidelines/
Number your pages.
Your name, the instructors name, class, section, and date will appear on the top left hand
corner of the first page. NO COVER PAGE.
Staple and secure the pages at the top left-hand corner.
Your paper is due at the beginning of class on December 20th. Late work will affect
your participation grade and I will not accept assignments more than one week late. Do not send your papers as attachments or do not leave them in my mailbox. For your safety they need to be handed to me in person. You will also present your work to your classmates (~5 minutes) on Dec 20th.
Assignment
A manifesto is an inspirational call to action: a bold statement of principles which addresses an issue of concerntypically social justice-oriented. Your manifesto should be proactive (stretching and challenging what exists), but should be grounded, realistic, and feasible. It should be creative, challenge assumptions, and foster commitment. You will write a manifesto addressing an issue we covered in class. You can easily identify the issues if you take a look at the course calendar which is divided into different issues.
For example, last week we covered the topic Trans*forming Masculinities and Masculinities without Men. We read about the persecution of non-binary or genderqueer people in Judith Halberstam and Amanda Lock Swarr among others, forging a transnational dialogue between the US and South Africa about the violations of rights of genderqueer people. Can you pick sites of persecution that these authors discuss, such as bathrooms (Halberstam) and townships (Swarr) to generate a global manifesto for genderqueer populations addressing violence against them which
hinder their right to access public spaces? To make buildings more user friendly to gender queer people, one action item might be to hold a town hall meeting about the issue. Another might be to generate a signature petition for the Mayors Office asking Mayor de Blassio to pass an executive order for the construction of gender neutral bathrooms in all buildings in New York City. This is only a model to help you structure your manifesto. You are in no way tied to this example, and can choose any topic from the sub headings in the course calendar. Below is the structure you should follow to design your manifesto:
1) a statement of purpose/mission statement
2) a bullet point list of 7 action items that are both personal/individual as well as structural
3) a brief statement of why what youre calling for matters. Your manifesto will be
accompanied by a more detailed narrative and analysis of the issue youre looking to address with the manifesto. This is where you bring at least 4 authors from your readings for this semester into conversation with each other to frame your manifesto. Remember that this assignment requires you to critically analyze and interpret the course material to persuasively argue your points. There is a difference between unjustified opinion and a persuasive argument. The assignment is not looking for a mere summary of the material.
