Midterm Paper Topic
LMidterm Paper Topic
Length: 4 to 5 typed pages, double space
All direct quotations must be documented. Go to Kimbel Librarys Citing Resources site and use the MLA style or a comparable style.
Choose a painting by the Belgian artist René Magritte that you find of particular interest. (Go to the Internet, google Rene Magritte, and select images. Make sure that you can identify the painting by its tittle and that you can send me a copy of the picture with your paper so that I see it.)
Write an analysis of Magrittes painting using any of the methods Arthur Berger has presented so far in Signs in Contemporary Culture. You may use, for instance, one or more of these methods of analysis: metaphor and metonymy, visual aspect of signs and problems of signs, denotation and connotation, imaginary signs, signs that lie, etcetera.
Identify the method or methods of analysis you have chosen from Signs in Contemporary Culture. Make sure you quote directly from the book. Quote often, it will help you organize your thoughts.
You dont have to use any other sources, but if you do, make sure you quote directly from them and give the authors credit.
Make sure that you describe the various signifiers in the painting and how they play with and against each other to generate a complex and often paradoxical sign (the text or painting).
What do we see in the painting (identify the basic signifiers)? How does Magritte generate the particular effect of his painting? What are the implications of the painting?
Give your paper an original and creative titlesomething that condenses the idea of your semiotic analysis and attracts the attention of your reader.
