M6A1: Essay 3: Liberal Arts, Diversity and Culture

You have been examining the liberal arts disciplines throughout this course. You have also wrestled with complex ethical dilemmas, as well as issues and concerns around diversity and communication. All of these activities have required you to apply your critical thinking skills. In Essay 3 you will have an opportunity to explore a particular liberal arts discipline and examine the history of how that discipline interacts with diverse peoples, cultures, and groups. Please select ONE of these disciplines: • Fine arts: painting sculpture, and/or architecture • Performing arts: you should most likely pick only one or two of these to focus your essay on: dance, theater, music, and/or film • Literature (you may wish to focus on a country, region of the world, or continent) • Sociology • Psychology • Anthropology (cultural anthropology would be best) • The Sciences (these will be hard to research separately, looking at the natural science fields as a whole will be easier. Try STEM fields as well; including Engineering and Math with the natural sciences is a hot topic currently) • Other discipline? Please discuss with your instructor Please include the following in your essay: Start with the history of your chosen discipline, when and where was it founded and who were the “founding fathers.” Place this in a historical context, for example: “ZZZ began as a scholarly discipline in 16th century Europe. At this time, most women were not allowed to attend college and further their education. People in Africa and Asia were making discoveries in this field but were not recognized or considered by the European founders of the discipline.” (Give examples of overlooked or ostracized individuals to support any claims.) Consider how advances in social justice and ethical treatment have helped your discipline to improve its treatment of women and minorities over time, or has it? (Be sure to use up-to-date research. Check the dates on your sources!) Discuss whether any of the promises made about equality and opportunity for women and minorities are actually being fulfilled and why or why not. (Be specific: what is being done, and is it working?) Include any other factors that may be at play here (financial, political, colonialism, nationalism, etc.). Examine the facts in relation to the factors at play and use this understanding to build a logical and informed conclusion. Have you found any solutions in your research for the issue? If so, include them in your discussion/conclusion, along with your own ideas about how this discipline can and/or cannot overcome its historic under representation of women and minorities. Additional Requirements and Resources: A minimum of four resources from academic publications found in the Excelsior Library 750 – 1250 words of writing. This does not include the title page or reference page. Please organize your paper based upon the approved outline and your faculty feedback. Grammatically correct sentences. If you need assistance, free tutoring is available through Smarthinking. You can link to it under “Free Tutoring” in your Table of Contents. To receive assistance on how to write essays, you can refer to the Excelsior OWL (Links to an external site.)