Humanities: The Arts and Culture of Asia

Your assignment is to write a critical essay on a specific subject from one of these asian country: Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, China, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos. This can be a painting, a work of architecture, a book, or a play your choice.

In you paper you will be identifying trends, interpreting themes, and noting cultural and social context observable in the art form you have chosen. Indeed, at the time it is only after writing about an art form that one really gets to know exactly what that particular art experience has meant personally. This project requires research. You are required to choose at least TWO BOOKS and two internet sources (WIKIPEDIA WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AS A SOURCE) for your research.

What to do:
1. Find a focus, and limit that focus, decide what should be contained in the paper and what should be left out of it.
2. Have a thesis “ a one-sentence or one-paragraph summation of what your paper is about. DONT be tempted to avoid this through vagueness. You have to think through what it is that you want to say about this art piece, and then communicate that in writing in an organized and cohesive manner.
3. Be imaginative in relation to your material. This does not mean inventing material simply for originality’s sake, but it does mean that your views, your intuition and your insights can be valuable.
4. Check your paper carefully for typographical errors, errors in grammar, and the like before turning it in.
5. FORMAT: Your paper must be 5 pages long or more, double-spaced, 1” margins, size 12 font (not 14), MLA format (for MLA guidelines you may go to this website): http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/