Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Spring 2026 | Paper 6

Due Saturday, March 14, 2:00 p.m., to your conference leader

Target length: 1,400-1,600 words

Choose one of the following topics:

  1. Luis Laso de la Vega’s Story of Guadalupe begins with a prayer to the Virgin that explains his work. What are the salient rhetorical devices that he uses to exalt and win the favor of the Virgin, and how do they compare to those used in the direct discourse between the Virgin and Juan Diego that follows? What do stylistic similarities and differences tell us about the work as a whole?

  2. Does Diego Rivera’s National Palace mural present Mexican history as a linear, continuous narrative, as a series of breaks and ruptures, or as something more complex? Analyze how Rivera creates a sense of historical continuity, rupture, or a tension between the two through the use of specific formal strategies (scale, placement, gesture, color, spatial organization, directionality, and relationships between figures). You should explain how particular formal elements construct an interpretation of the past through a close visual analysis of one or two vignettes from the mural.

  3. The unit we are finishing has relied extensively on the critical concept of hybridity. Using one of the following texts listed below, explain the utility and limitations of hybridity as an interpretive tool. What aspects of the material does hybridity illuminate? What aspects does hybridity obscure? Be sure to define hybridity in your own words, based on your understanding from course lectures (and/or other secondary materials if sanctioned by your conference leader).

  4. Choose one casta painting and develop a clear, focused argument about how the painting visually organizes and classifies social difference. Your argument should also explain how the painting relates to the casta system itself. In your analysis, consider how categories such as race, gender, family, labor, and social status are made visible. Pay close attention to formal elements such as clothing, skin tone, facial expression, gesture, posture, setting, objects, spatial arrangement, and overall composition. How do these elements work together to produce meaning? Does the image simply produce, reinforce, and naturalize colonial racial categories, or might elements of the image also resist the construction of racial categories and hierarchies?

  5. The argument of Sor Juana’s “Reply to Sor Filotea” balances appeals to authority figures with appeals to Sor Juana’s individual erudition. Focusing on Sor Juana’s discussion of her study of theology (19–29), analyze the means whereby Sor Juana justifies her scholarly pursuits. When does Sor Juana rely on external authorities to validate her claims? When does Sor Juana rely on her personal experience or her own reasoning to validate her positions? To what extent does Sor Juana present herself as conforming to authoritative precedents, versus reasoning her way toward innovative conclusions? Given your answers to these questions, what is Sor Juana’s approach to learning or to persuasion?

  6. Various documents we have studied this semester seek to articulate a national identity for Mexico as distinct from other polities, such as peninsular Spain or the United States of America. Choose one pair of documents concerning nineteenth-century Mexico’s independence, either “Sentiments of the Nation” and “Plan of Iguala” OR “A Conservative Profession of Faith” and “Considerations Relating to the Political and Social Situation of the Mexican Republic in the Year 1847.” Working with your pair of documents, analyze how each document constructs Mexico as a distinct nation. What specific language does the document use to articulate the literal or figurative boundaries of this nation, in terms of its territories, peoples, institutions, and cultures? Who or what belongs in the new nation, and who or what is excluded? To what extent do the two documents concur in their idea of Mexico? To what extent do the two documents differ in their visions of what the nation is currently and ought to be in the future? 

  7. Through close analysis of a single scene or two in Los Olvidados, discuss how the medium of black and white film enhances or complicates the audience’s understanding of ethical choice and/or moral responsibility. Avoid lengthy plot summary or character description and, instead, demonstrate how the film produces and sustains meaning through visual and formal strategies. This means you should pay careful attention to the formal elements of black and white cinematography, including framing, focus, light and shadow, visibility and obscurity, tonal range, and costume.

  8. In consultation with your conference leader, devise your own topic.

Using generative artificial intelligence or large language models such as ChatGPT to compose all or part of your paper will be considered academic misconduct.