Instructions

 look over the many works you’ve posted on your blog and try to find some overarching theme.  Keep in mind that you have considerable leeway and creativity in how you approach this, but it should be something that you can support by citing and discussing the blog entries you’ve posted over the course of the semester. You may not find a theme to connect all of the posts (though it is possible), but you can surely find some theme to connect several of them.

For example, let’s assume that I – a student in online 2020 – am looking over my blog posts, seeking within them patterns or unifying values. I notice that I chose to analyze an abstract painting that’s busy with jagged lines and sharp angles; my playlist features songs like Wham’s “Wake Me up before You Go-Go,” and Eminem’s “Stay Wide Awake”; my photo series features shots of my favorite coffee cups from my considerable home collection. I realize a unifying theme of stimulants/stimulation, thus I write “The Stimulist Manifesto” (note that I make up this term, but one that makes sense in its context.  In this assignment you can be creative, have fun, and still be analytical). In classic manifesto-style I might begin such a document, “WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!!!” Or, in another make-believe example, I realize that my scene from the Godfather is one of the many in which the Corleones are discussing the importance of family ties; my public sculpture happens to be of a boy and his dog; I have analyzed the scene in which Hamlet chastises his mother for betraying his late father. Thus, I might see a pattern here and pen, “Manifesto of the Loyalists,” my imaginary movement celebrating art that celebrates commitment between people or family members.