Monday, February 8, 2016
Final Paper Ideas
I have a few ideas for the final paper. One idea is about how fraternities have changed throughout the years. I like this idea because I feel like throughout my 4 years here, I have noticed a big change in culture. Another idea I have is how fraternity nationals suck money out of all of the chapters they have throughout the country. I like this idea because again throughout my 4 years here, dues (payments to the fraternity) have gone way up.
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I think the history of fraternities could be a very interesting project. I noticed a book the other day on the topic, though it focuses most on the way fraternities have changed with changing notions of masculinity, which might not interest you:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Company-He-Keeps-Fraternities-American/dp/0807859311/
I am sure there are other historical surveys, and certainly some that trace fraternities back to the Freemasons and early Republican ideology (not to be confused with our own notions of "republican" today). There are also histories of individual fraternities, but they tend to be more hagiographies than analyses.
If you want to stick to more 20th-century history of fraternities, you might look at the relationship of fraternities to changes in the drinking age and to the changing University -- which at first tried to control drinking but, under privatization, tended to accept fraternities as part of the "party pathway" that benefits both of them. I think could lead to groundbreaking research.
Another history could look at the portraits of fraternities on film. Consider this interesting article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/02/pop-cultures-war-on-fraternities/284126/
And film could be used to support a 20th-century history of fraternities.
As for the relationship between chapters and the home office: that sounds like too much "inside baseball," though it could be interesting. The rise in fees may be related to a rise in lawsuits, for example, or some other issue. If you identify an interesting reason for the fees, then you might be able to turn that into a project.