In this assignment, you’ll make up a character from a ‘better world’ of your own imagining and write a letter from their perspective to all of the people of Earth. Make sure to include some mention of how their world became the way it is.
Just as The Dispossessed stimulates our sociological imagination by presenting and contrasting a utopian world and a world more like ours, you will use your made-up world to highlight problems you see in modern societies and discuss ways those problems could be addressed.
The “better world” can be called anything you want, and it can work any way you choose to imagine it. The character can also be anyone you want to imagine: A scientist, an ambassador, a refugee, a teacher, a leader. You choose. They can even be someone who doesn’t like the ‘better world’ very much, or has criticisms of it! The only limit is your imagination.
The most important thing is that you use the letter you write from their perspective to illustrate social problems in our world and your mastery of sociological perspectives.
For full credit, you must include and define the following concepts in your own words in bold text within the text of your letter, as a natural part of the letter. You will lose a point if your terms are not in bold, and you will lose a half point if your definition is incorrect, or is quoted directly from a source rather than written in your own words. Each of the following is worth 1 full point, for a total of 18 points:
Sociology
The sociological imagination
Norms and deviance
Structure and agency
Cultural capital
Wealth inequality
Capitalism
Conflict theory
Gender vs. Sex
Gender binary
Sexism & Patriarchy
Social construction
Heteronormativity
Racialization
Systemic Racism
Intersectionality
Wages of whiteness
Reparations
n this assignment, you’ll make up a character from a ‘better world’ of your own imagining and write a letter from their perspective to all of the people of Earth. Make sure to include some mention of how their world became the way it is.
Just as The Dispossessed stimulates our sociological imagination by presenting and contrasting a utopian world and a world more like ours, you will use your made-up world to highlight problems you see in modern societies and discuss ways those problems could be addressed.
The “better world” can be called anything you want, and it can work any way you choose to imagine it. The character can also be anyone you want to imagine: A scientist, an ambassador, a refugee, a teacher, a leader. You choose. They can even be someone who doesn’t like the ‘better world’ very much, or has criticisms of it! The only limit is your imagination.
The most important thing is that you use the letter you write from their perspective to illustrate social problems in our world and your mastery of sociological perspectives.
For full credit, you must include and define the following concepts in your own words in bold text within the text of your letter, as a natural part of the letter. You will lose a point if your terms are not in bold, and you will lose a half point if your definition is incorrect, or is quoted directly from a source rather than written in your own words. Each of the following is worth 1 full point, for a total of 18 points:
Sociology
The sociological imagination
Norms and deviance
Structure and agency
Cultural capital
Wealth inequality
Capitalism
Conflict theory
Gender vs. Sex
Gender binary
Sexism & Patriarchy
Social construction
Heteronormativity
Racialization
Systemic Racism
Intersectionality
Wages of whiteness
Reparations
Food sovereignty Drug criminalization Mass incarceration White collar crime Strain theory Structural violence Policing
Liberalism (and its contradictions) Economic democracy
Pluralism
Elite Theory
Kincentric Ecology
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Environmental Racism
Externalization
Collective Identity
Resource mobilization
Political opportunity theory
Repertoire of contention
Revolution
Make sure to put the concepts and their definitions (in your own words!) in bold text, like this.
There is no required page length. The terms, and their definitions, will earn you 20 points if they are all included, correct, and defined in your own words. The final 5 points for the assignment are based on creativity and effort – for a total of 25 points.
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