Human-nonhuman Assemblage Essay #1 Solution

Human-nonhuman assemblage

Prompt

Describe and analyze your own “human-nonhuman assemblage.” What is it composed of? What, specifically, does it have the power to affect in the human-nonhuman world? In what ways does its composition and its effects illuminate a significant entanglement of the human and the nonhuman? In other words, how does the assemblage complicate traditional divisions between the human and nonhuman world?

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Possible Format and Considerations

1. In the introduction, introduce your assemblage. Briefly, what is it? What is it made of? And, briefly to start, what is its significance in complicating the division between the human and the nonhuman world?

2. Alternatively, begin with an illustration. Like Bennett’s power grid failure, what image or event could illustrate your assemblage—its composition, its effects, its significance? Such an image may illustrate the assemblage’s complexity, indeterminacy, and potential Then, in the second paragraph, step back and begin your analysis, perhaps bringing in a thesis toward or at the end of the second paragraph (or wherever effective).

3. In the body of the paper, discuss your views/points regarding this assemblage. More carefully articulate its composition—what it’s made of and how it’s made. Here, an illustration would be helpful if you did not include one in the intro. Further illustrations could help, as well, or a deeper illustration of your initial image or event.

4. Also in the body, what are the effects of this assemblage? The power grid affected 50 million people. A more recent power grid failure (2021) was responsible for the lives of 210 people in Texas during a winter storm. That blackout affected millions more in different ways. You could also discuss possible effects your assemblage might have—not only on humans, but on the planet (in terms of climate change), on animal life, etc.

5. Finally, how does this assemblage illuminate the entanglement of the human and nonhuman? How does it show that we can’t mark a clear boundary between the two and simply claim that humans make decisions and matter/nature obeys our every directive? Here, you may touch on another relevant significance of your choosing, if you like.

6. A conclusion can be analytical—like Point 5 above—but it can also use another illustration to reaffirm and recast your points in a new light. Perhaps there is another

image or event that can show what you are concluding, thereby enabling the reader to see it in action. Ultimately, it is your decision based on what will be effective for your paper.

7. Throughout these paragraphs, use Bennett’s work in your analysis. I cannot give you an exact ratio for how much to use Bennett’s work. But in order to deepen your analysis it would be effective to refer to her at least several times, let’s say 4-5 times roughly, so that you can contextualize your assemblage in this analytical framework. Therefore, use Bennett’s points and language around the power grid to help you make your own points.

8. Your “self” may or may not enter the paper. If you have experience relevant to your assemblage, or if you are part of this assemblage, feel free to include yourself. However, your “self” is only part of the assemblage, and personal experience should not bear the weight of your argument. It can, however, be helpful supplementary

9. Proofread your paper thoroughly and make sure it follows basic MLA format.

Choosing a Topic

• Ideally, your assemblage will be a material thing of some sort or degree, or have significant material components (like the power grid). This will enable you to apply Bennett’s work and think through human and nonhuman assemblages. But if you would like to be more creative or conceptual, please clear your topic with me.

• Examples of other assemblages might be

• Anything computer-related (like the power grid itself)

• Anything that carries or is responsible for information (but more specific than the Cloud or Internet—perhaps a particular database, server, etc.)

• A scientific instrument, tool, or piece of technology that is created by human beings

but can’t always be entirely controlled by them (again, the power grid)

• Something not technological, like a work of art (look up Laurie Gries “Obama Hope”), or a piece of music, or a book or poem, that has a material element to it that is taken up differently and reshaped/remixed by different people, using different technologies, which then goes on to produce effects perhaps beyond the original artist, musician, or writer’s intention

• Notice how all of these examples have elements of indeterminacy in them. That is, these assemblages can’t always be predicted in the way they change. And their effects can’t always be predicted or controlled either, like how an artist years later remixes another artist’s song with new technology

• “Generative music,” or “generative ambient music,” is a good example— where technology is used to randomize part of the composing of music itself (look up Brian Eno’s album Reflections)

• Your assemblage need not necessarily have a clear-cut component of indeterminacy. Being an assemblage though, it probably does. Ideally, tease out this indeterminacy relation in order to show how the nonhuman world isn’t just “dead matter” that responds to our every manipulation.

• Again, feel free to be creative. If you feel you are pushing the boundaries of the prompt, let me know.

• My general rule: I am not strict about my prompts, per se. What counts as a “good topic” to me is something that will be productive to write about, which will allow you to use the text(s) we’re working with, and which will produce an analysis that engages our course direction, but may go beyond it, or challenge it, or rethink it in different ways.

Rubric for A1 Analytical Essay

Addressing the Issue

The extent to which the essay successfully explores the issue set forth in the assignment with sufficient scope and complexity. Effective responses will maintain a focus on the framework of the reading(s) and apply it/them to their own topic with accuracy, complexity, and originality.

Coherence and Cogency

Effective essays will maintain a cogent focus on the particular writing task at hand and avoid extraneous, unrelated points that do not add to the essay’s central purpose.

Support

The extent to which the paper’s assertions are supported by Bennett’s framework and the writer’s selected sources, all of which attend to the prompt. A facility for selecting and citing relevant quotations and paraphrasing key ideas from Bennett’s text, as well as from outside sources, is an attribute of effective support for a rhetorically apt purpose.

Grammar and Syntax

The quality of the paper at the micro-, or sentence, level: mechanics, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and effective use of MLA format. Good syntax and format permit the reader to quickly and clearly read an essay without stumbling over the surface-level elements and thus losing the main thread.