Please explain in a thorough paragraph your topic for the research paper, which is detailed below. Don’t worry if you’re a bit unsure — this is a working topic, and I will provide any needed feedback to help you focus your topic.
Instructions for Interdisciplinary Term Paper
In this course, we will see how work is connected to historical moments and sociological concepts. Historians help us understand how work has evolved over time, and sociologists help us understand the impact of work on workers. These moments and ideas, in some ways, play out in the stories we read and the films we view.
For this interdisciplinary term paper, you will explore and select an idea or theme related to the world of work and connect it to at least one of the texts we’re reading this term (play, film, story, poem). For example, you might explore the ways in which

    Tom Wayman’s poem “Factory Time” speaks to how factory workers view time;
    the film Modern Times and the poem “You Can Have It” demonstrate how important family is in the working world;
    the optimism of Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” contrasts with the harsh realities as seen in the tragic Triangle  Shirtwaist Company Fire;
    the desperation of not finding work is found in Philip Levine’s “What Work Is” and Tom Wayman’s poem “Unemployment”