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verbal

One of the things that I really enjoy doing -- but don't do nearly enough -- is writing. I'm going to try to make an effort to put the more interesting of the things I write here.

Sections

Papers

ANTH 263: Exploring Culture Through Film

  • Being Green in the Big City
    "The characterization of societal power structures in The Muppets Take Manhattan serves to underline the importance of equity and diversity."

Film Censorship

Film Genre: Speculative Cinema

Massively Multiplayer Online Games

  • Gaming in the Metaverse
    Second Life in many ways resembles the metaverse popular in science fiction. Recently this world has been utilized as a platform for game development. A look at the challenges and opportunities facing such work.

Writing 340

  • Indecency in the 21st Century
    A look at the current model of broadcast regulation especially as it pertains to indecency. Extends this look to show why such regulation cannot and must not be extended to new media such as cable, satellite, and the Internet.
  • The Train's Coming, but will USC Students Care?
    We had to do a survey, so I asked people transit questions. I'm not attaching the figures or questions because I'm lazy, but the main paper body explains well enough.
  • Can Blogs and Corporations Co-exist?
    Are blogs and corporations mutually exclusive? Does something about the blog format require that it not have corporate intervention?

History of American Cinema: 1940 - 1975

  • The Counter-Cultural Voice of Cinema
    Talking about four films in particular (Dr. Strangelove, Day of the Dolphin, Five Easy Pieces, and Midnight Cowboy), their genres, and how they were influenced by the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Argumentation and Advocacy

American Literature

  • Franklin, Poe, and the American Dream
    The prompt asked to show how Poe deconstructed the ideal of self-creation and control set forth by Franklin, and then talk about that and the American identity. I'm not sure if I like the result or not. It was only allowed to be 3 - 4 pages, so I could have elaborated more.

Comm 201

Legal Issues and New Media

  • On Copyright and the Public Domain
    I take a look at the history and current state of copyright, and how imbalances in the system threaten to destroy the public domain.
  • United States v. ALA
    This is just a quick prompt talking about the US v. ALA case that involved CIPA. The case has since been decided by the court in favor of the government.

Hip-Hop Nation

  • The Globalization of Hip-Hop Culture
    I argue that Hip-Hop culture cannot exist apart from the social struggles that framed its emergence.
  • Law & Order
    I'm not creative on a title today. This is in response to the following prompt: Craft an analysis exploring the relationships, however fraught and contradictory they might be, between discourses of law & order, urban space, and hip-hop creative culture.
  • On Defining Urban
    Is "Urban" a place or a conjured reality? I say that modern society has blurred the lines between what is urban and what is not.

Gender, Media, and Society

  • Gender and the Internet
    I had forgotten about this paper until I happened across it on my computer. It didn't do very well in the class, but I think that was because I was headed a different direction than the prompt intended.

Contemporary Ethical Theory

  • On Moral Luck
    Again I find myself refuting Thomas Nagel, this time his essay "Moral Luck." I argue that he fails to differentiate between moral responsibility and criminal culpability.

Comm 200

  • Elaboration Likelihood Model
    This isn't exactly something to read for fun. It's a dry topic, a really specific prompt, and a really boring topic. But hey, it did well...

Writing 140

  • Moral Obligation to Help
    Are we morally obligated to help others? I say that we are not, because it is impossible to clearly enumerate the situations where such help would be required.
  • Scientology and Freedom of Speech
    I look at Scientology and its attempts to censor detractors via copyright law, particularly in the Netcom case, and the recent google censoring.
  • Violence for Political Ends
    This paper is in response to the prompt, Is violence ever justifiable to obtain political ends? I argue that it is not.
  • The Ethics of Materialism
    The prompt was on the ethics of materialism, but I took it in the direction of corporate ethics, talking about how corporations will only behave ethically if it will positively affect their bottom line.
  • Megan's Law
    I argue that civil liberties are more basic than the desire to reduce crime, and that therefore Megan's Law is morally unsupportable.

Contemporary Moral and Social Issues

  • A Rebuttal of Thomas Nagel
    This paper is a response the Thomas Nagel's article "Equal Treatment and Compensatory Discrimination," which alleges that we do not deserve the rewards of our natural abilities. I argue against his article on the grounds that it is vague and contradictory.
  • Refuting Judith Jarvis Thomson
    This paper analyzes and refutes the abortion arguments of Judith Jarvis Thomson. It looks at her famous violinist example, and attempts to show how it falls short in supporting all that she wants it to.

Liberal Political Theory & The Social Contract

  • Social Contract Final
    This is the final essay I wrote for this class. To be honest, I don't remember the prompt and I haven't read back through the paper, so I don't really know what I wrote about.
  • Justification of Rights in Social Contract Theory
    This paper is a summary of a presentation I was a part of for Liberal Political Theory and the Social Contract. I must say that in my opinion the paper is much better than the presentation, seeing as I changed it to reflect the interesting discussion we had. It compares the justification of rights as presented in Hobbes' Leviathon, Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Rawls' Justice as Fairness, and Gauthier's Morals by Agreement.
  • Locke Essays
    These two essays on Locke were for Liberal Political Theory and the Social Contract. One is on Locke's views of consent, the other his views on rebellion.

Medieval Civilizations

  • Individualism as Differing from the Norm
    My last paper for Medieval Civilizations. This one is on The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. I actually enjoyed reading most of this book, so that helped. The personal letters are fascinating when you consider how long ago they were written.
  • Charlemagne: Characteristics of a Leader
    Another paper for Medieval Civilizations. I really don't have much to say about this one.
  • Frederick Barbarossa
    This essay is actually titled "Frederick Barbarossa: Physical Description of a Leader." It's probably quite close to the definition of a BS paper. We'll see how it does.
  • Augustine's Views of Sin and Grace in the Confessions
    This is an essay I wrote for Medieval Civilizations. It was a real pain to search through the Confessions for quotes to support everything. That's a dense book.

High School English

  • Snow Crash vs. Brave New World
    I wrote this essay this past spring for English. It was sort of a thrown together thing (written all the night before the rough draft was due), but I guess it came out sort of interesting. It concerns the two books and their differing visions of the future role of government.
  • Dreams
    This is a short essay about why people dream, written for Senior English.
  • Heart of Darkness
    For Senior English we had to write an essay on whether Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a racist book.
  • Privacy in the Information Age
    I wrote this for a Junior English research paper. Someday I think I'm going to update it and polish it some, but here's the April 2000 version.