Final Reflection
As with other assignments, it is significant to understand the intention of this intellectual practice. You are revisiting the narrative of this course as encompassed by our study this semester. This is your moment to revisit and conclude your thoughts in relation to our study this semester. You have resources/readings to help guide you.
I will replace “what should” with what “makes sense”; I provide guidelines not rules. Here’s what makes sense to me:
- Like with all things in life, you have to make sense of what you are doing. “What should” comes in the way of making sense of things. As I have repeated myself again and again, when in doubt the underemployed common sense will come handy.
- In relation to point 1 above, first and foremost, the question remains: how do we “conclude” or “revisit” a semester-long conversation. What that means is far from obvious. What does it mean to conclude/revisit a conversation? How? To what end? It is inevitable/obviously reasonable that everyone provides some sort of rationale of your own revisiting of the conversation this semester and of your approach to it;
- To revisit a story there has to be a clear sense of the very story that you are visiting;
- All public conversation is an ‘act of persuasion’. You are trying to persuade your audience (the REL 378 class) of your analysis and conclusion. Is expressing opinions the same as persuading the person of those? What will it take to persuade?
- That your revisiting the story expresses comprehension of the issues you raise, awareness of those readings from this semester that are obviously relevant;
- The importance of the quality of engagement of our audience and how persuasive, convincing and credible we are in what we communicate to them is again only obvious;
- Readings you are invited to consult for this assignment will demand grasping/deep comprehension and will have to be juxtaposed and brought to bear upon the revisiting of the story of Islam and Modernity we discussed this semester.
I leave the issue of length to your judgment; do state your own rationale for why you chose that length. In the class I mentioned “quality” over “quantity”. If in doubt, employ common sense. If still confused, contact me.
