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WRITING POLITICAL
HUMOR |
Poli 311.01
(W,IT) Professor Sammy
Basu |
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Assignment Four: |
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The nexus of issues to be addressed in this assignment
involves the optimal role of God(s), religion, religious belief, religious
institutions and so on in the operations of government and the public life of
the nation. You are free to use humor either to be irreligious, i.e.,
undermining the moralizing presumptuousness of some specific religious
orthodoxy to legislate religious practices and faith-based beliefs, or
conversely, to be devout, and, say, call attention to the moral vacuity of
secular scientific humanism and the decadence-inducing separation of church
and state. |
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However, you must write in such a way that you are
engaging in the giving of advice/prescriptions/salutary wisdom through
Ôdevilish ventriloquismÕ (aÕla Lewis), i.e. speaking for the approach to
religious matters with which you disagree on moral and political grounds
(aÕla Swift) and revealing the nature of your disagreement, and highlighting
the ÔviolenceÕ entailed as well as the real psychological motives, fears and
so on or material interests you think are operative behind the words and
hidden violence (aÕla Bierce). |
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Pick one
of the following two options: |
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1. God (according to spokespersons for Religion x) has
provided a new and improved Decalogue for this Millennium. |
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2. Willamette University is undergoing a curricular
transformation. |
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Provide ten commandments and provide a brief (one
paragraph) clarificatory rationale for each. |
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Provide ten new Course titles and descriptions that embody
its (problematic) turn to Religion x/Secular humanism. |
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In either assignment, each item should have a specific weblink
(to some real world organization or site, and not to wikipedia) the content
of which stands in a humorous relationship to the item. You should strive to make mention of contemporary
phenomena and issues that have been the subject of controversy on religious
grounds: e.g. intelligent design, climate change, abortion, stem-cell
research, prayer in schools, moral degeneracy, and so on. |
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800 words total. |
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Once again, take advantage of the graphic possibilities of
being online. |
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In a separate explanatory statement (600 words) please make
clear the nature of your moral and political disagreement and what it is you
think that is really animating the adherents of the group/belief system you
are critiquing. Briefly explain
your humorous strategies. |
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Due:
Thu Nov 5, ready for viewing in class. |
