Everyday Life in Literary and Visual Cultures
Representing Everyday Life in Literary and Visual Cultures
This task requires you to write a 700-word summary in response to one of the topics below.
In a summary you are explaining the key ideas and arguments of another author in your own words. You don’t have to evaluate their ideas, just summarize them. Your summary should be clear and concise. You can use some short quotations from the primary text, but for the most part you should summarise the author’s ideas and arguments in your own words. Remember, a summary means identifying relevant ideas as per the topic and paraphrasing them in a clear and straightforward manner.
You are being assessed on 1) your comprehension of the primary material; 2) your capacity to accurately and clearly explain the author’s ideas and arguments in your own words; 3) the quality of your written expression. See the Learning Guide for the Marking Criteria table (p.
8).
Topics (write a 700-word summary on one of the below topics)
- In ‘The Everyday and Everydayness’ Henri Lefebvre argues that in the modern world ‘we see a worldwide tendency to uniformity’ in everyday life (7). By contrast, he argues that everyday life in pre-modern times presented a ‘prodigious diversity’ (7). Focusing on pages 7-9 of his essay, summarise what he means by this shift from diversity to uniformity. In your response, provide an example of this change in the form of objects, food, fashion, or architecture (this can be your own example, not Lefebvre’s).
- In ‘Figuring the Everyday’ Ben Highmore discusses the standardization of time and how it reshaped many aspects of everyday life in the modern world. Write a summary explaining his account of the standardization of time (i.e. its history) and two ways in which he discusses its impact on the nature of everyday life in the modern world. In your summary, draw on information from pp. 5-9 of his essay.
- Summarise Rita Felski’s account of a) why repetition has historically been aligned with women in histories of everyday life and; b) two ways she argues that repetition can be an important and valuable aspect of the everyday. Base your summary on ideas and arguments in the section titled ‘Repetition’.