Here are a few links to help you get you started on your project:
This project is an opportunity for you to become a more reflective participant and observer of your own body, including your internal dynamics and how you interact with others and the world around you. The project will involve engaging in a new bodily practice, writing short blogs posts about theses bodily experiences, and revising your best blog posts into a curated blog portfolio for your final project assessment.
The first step is to choose a body practice that you do not already do regularly and that you are curious to take up and explore in this class. This may entail trying a new eating practice, learning a new sport, modifying your gender expression, wearing a fitness tracker, changing your personal grooming routine, practicing a new craft, taking a different mode of transportation, speaking a different dialect, writing a diary, engaging in meditation, taking a dance class, etc. The possibilities are endless – the only requirement is that you choose something you do not usually do and stick with it for the duration of the assignment.
The next step is to set up your own individual blog (online journal) where you will be reflecting on your bodily experiences. You will be using this blog to write short posts documenting your observations, experiences, sensations, thoughts, and feelings related to your new body practice. To encourage digital experimentation, up to TWO of your blog posts may be produced in an alternative format (video, podcast, etc.) as long as this meets the minimum word count. You may choose any blogging platform that allows you to submit posts of the requested length (such as Blogger, Instagram, WordPress, etc.).
After setting up your new blog, you will write four blog posts about your changing bodily experiences. The first blog post should introduce your chosen body practice and your rationale for choosing this particular practice. The remaining blog posts may be on any aspect of your new body practice (including observations, experiences, sensations, thoughts, feelings related to your embodied experiences, and other people’s reactions). Each blog post should be 200–300 words and will be graded for completion (i.e. full credit if you demonstrate effort, meet the minimum word count, and submit the blog post weblink by the deadline). The grading scale is: 2 points for full credit, 1 point if late or inadequate, 0 points if not submitted within a week of the deadline. Each post is worth 10% of the total project grade.
The final component of this project is to create a curated blog portfolio. You will choose three of your best blog posts to revise and synthesize into a final blog portfolio (~1000 words) that reflects your engagement with course themes, concepts, and readings. Your curated blog portfolio should connect your bodily experiences with larger course themes by considering the following questions:
- How are your bodily sensations and reactions shaped by interpersonal interactions, cultural norms, institutional structures, corporate interests, and state policies?
- What are you learning from this new body practice that you did not know before?
- How does your bodily experience relate to the readings and concepts we are discussing in the course?
- Does this bodily practice change how you think about your embodiment and/or identity in any way?
- What are the ‘body politics’ shaping this particular bodily practice?
A key part of the assignment involves applying some of the analytical tools and concepts discussed in the readings, lectures, and tutorials to make sense of your chosen body practice. Your blog portfolio should use the terms we have introduced in class to analyze how, why, and in what ways you are experiencing this bodily practice.
The final blog portfolio is worth 50% of the project grade and will be graded for quality (i.e. A to F) according to the grade descriptors listed at the end of this document. Make sure to cite your sources and include a bibliography. Your portfolio should also incorporate multimedia elements such as images, videos, or spoken word recordings to help illustrate and support your analysis. The default format for the final blog portfolio is a written collection of revised blog posts or one longer integrated piece (~1000 words in total). We also welcome alternative formats, but you must discuss your plan with your tutor and obtain advance written approval from the CCGL9064 teaching team for this. Please consult HKU Moodle for due dates and assignment submission links.
