UCB Project Proposal

Submit a proposal that outlines your initial plan for the final project. This proposal will include a
500-word project description along with an annotated bibliography, both in one document.
Below is information on how to complete the project proposal. Your proposal should be geared
toward one of the following project options:
1. Research Paper: Write an analytical paper 2000–2500 words in length (about 7–9 full
pages, double-spaced) that is directly related to concepts in sex, love, and romance.
Papers must include an introduction, conclusion, and bibliography; along with a thesis
statement and evidence throughout that supports and advances your arguments. You
are welcome to use non-academic sources in addition to the required scholarly sources.
2. Zine: Create a magazine-format booklet (a “zine”) that narrates a particular issue and is
informed by your research. Then write a 500-word reflection paper that describes your
creative inspiration for the zine, explains your analysis, and interprets how your zine
intervenes in the issue or topic you chose. Zines can take different forms and size but are
generally expected to be at least 6 pages in length. Zines can include images, poetry,
quotes, art, and other creative texts by others (be sure to attribute creators) or original
creative work made by you!
Your zine should respond to one of the following prompts:
a. Redefining Romance: Take a classic or normative romance story, cliché, theme,
or meme and manipulate it to disrupt and transform the normative ways that it
represents gender, race, class, culture, or other vectors or power and identity.
b. Public Service Announcement (PSA): Choose an issue in sex, love, and romance
for which there is a great deal of panic, lack of understanding, misrepresentation,
or stereotyping (such as girlhood, the purity myth, porn, sex work, marriage). Write
a zine that is informative as well as politically progressive in its representation of
those who are especially impacted by the social issue under question.
FEMST 150, Summer Session B 2021, Prof. Victorian Proposal Guidelines 2
Part I: Project Description
The first part of the proposal is your project description. This should—in at least 500 words and
using language understandable by a classmate—thoroughly address:
1. Your choice of medium: Research Paper or Zine
2. Overview of your chosen topic: You may choose your own topic, but it MUST address
sex, love, and/or romance, specifically—not just gender or feminism in general. This may
be a topic we do not discuss in the course, but it should still be relevant to major concepts
addressed in the course; that is, course materials should still offer some guidance to your
analysis and arguments.
For zines: Remember to choose and discussion which prompt, “Redefining Romance” or
“Public Service Announcement,” you have chosen.
Choosing a Topic
A great starting point for ideas is to look at the topics for each week of th