• the prompt Lynn Hunt argues that cultural artifacts not only represent the human condition; they teach us new ways to be human. In this essay, you’ll apply Hunt’s concepts to a cultural artifact of your choosing (pending my approval) in order to develop an original interpretation: What new way of being human does your chosen artifact teach its users? And specifically how does it teach that lesson to them?

• audience Imagine that you’re submitting this essay to journal of undergraduate writing. The editors are an art historian, a philosopher, and a literary critic. They’re broadly familiar with the philosophy of human rights; however, they haven’t read Lynn Hunt’s work, and so they’re not familiar with her arguments. And although it’s possible that one or two of them is somewhat familiar with the cultural artifact you’ve chosen to analyze, the others are not.

• format You are to format your essay in MLA style (including a Works Cited page). See the “Formatting your work” tab on the blog.

• due dates You’ll write this essay in stages over a period of several class meetings. A summary of Hunt is to be shared with me (John.Tiedemann@du.edu) on Google Drive by the start of class Thursday, 3/24. A draft of a thesis paragraph is due on Tuesday, 3/29. A draft of the body of your paper is due on Thursday, 3/31. And a revised draft of the complete essay is due on Tuesday, 4/5. (Your final draft is due at noon on Friday, June 3.)

Be sure to follow the instructions on the “Sharing your work” tab on our blog.

w r i t 1 7 3 3 h u m a n r i g h t s / h u m a n s w r i t e

t i e d e m a n n s p r i n g 2 0 1 6

e s s a y 1 : w r i t i n g h u m a n i t y