random research ideas

For history 383 –

Reconstruction era marriage and divorce patterns in Mississippi.
The majority of my primary sources would be precedent-setting Court cases, although I could also search the archives for letters, diaries, and the like. Other legal miscellanea, such as correspondence, motions, and memorandum, could also serve as primary sources if only I could get my hands on such.

For sociology 455 –

Race, Gender, and Otherization.
I still have a lot to consider here. This is on the verge of being yet another “broad, overarching idea” !

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I’m suddenly struck by the realization (and the thought: why didn’t I think of that sooner?) of a contradiction inherent of academia. Scholarship is said to be built upon the sharing of ideas - the recitation and criticism of other’s ideas. Why, then, is there the pressure to come up with “original scholarship”?

interdisciplinary ideas

During my sociology 455 class today I realized that I must find a way to coalesce some of the various assorted branches of the humanities (namely history, sociology, and anthropology) through the course of my future scholastic endeavors.

My genius idea about classifying gender and race as socio-cultural technologies seems to fit nicely with a functionalist sociological framework, although I was not consciously aware of that when I came upon the idea in the brambles of my mind.

I’m wondering if and how the ideas of latent and manifest functions, and dysfunctions, might be applied to this idea, but I have a good feeling that this course will point me in the right direction. That is, if it doesn’t outright provide an explanation/answer…

the wrong approach

Last night I had an epiphany: I realized where I’d gone wrong with this blog! I had thought of blogging here as a chore, and associated it with something I needed to be doing as a conscientious aspiring scholar, but I now see that that was all wrong, because this blog isn’t a chore at all; it is a tool!

Yay for me for discovering this.

I have now officially begin my last semester as an undergraduate, on a good note, too. Good, that is, other than the fact that my first class of the semester - Logic - didn’t meet because of a tornado warning.The five classes which will round out my undergraduate studies are: (1) Logic, (2) Contemporary US History, (3) Sociology 455 or, Race and Ethnic Relations, (4) Creative Writing, and (5) Women in US History. So far it’s shaping up to be an interesting semester. I’ll have to get to write a lot, which will be a fulfilling challenge that will allow me to expand and hone my skills as an academic. No worries, just learning new stuff.

The two things I must fret about now are: (1) the GRE, and (2) my UCLA application.

I’m struggling to come up with a feasible research topic. My mind seems stuck in broad, overarching-theme-mode, and I don’t know where or how to pare down. An alumnus of the institute advised me that the research doesn’t have to be self-contained, that it can be part of a larger research project, which is encouraging indeed.

Race and Gender are what I’m stuck on. Specifically, the ways that race and gender are both used to oppress segments of society. These two — for lack of a better description — soci-cultural technologies have profoundly shaped the course of history. This seems so obvious to me that I don’t know where to begin to try to prove it.

Then the thought of socio-cultural technology brings me back to that other historical truth that I have convinced myself of: that human culture - and, accordingly, its myriad assorted mechanism and functions - is a technological innovation just like any other that has made our existence on earth that much easier and efficient-in-a-primitive-sort-of-way.

So I’ve much to mull over.

In the meanwhile I need to do a little sociology 101 review.