Background: For this course, artifacts are things that stand alone but their meaning are connected to larger concepts.In fact my mom's neighbor has a Southern/Rebel flag hung up in his garage. He was immediately met with suspicion from the block, and is still held with suspicion—over a flag. I once worked with a student who decided that when government soldiers came to his university classes recruiting young men, they would question why they were not allowed to finished their studies and then choose to join the miliarty or not. They made freedom symbols and quickly found that anyone with such a symbol "disappeared" or ended up in the hospital severely beaten just as his professor and best friend experienced.

There are, of course and thank goodness, artifacts that inspire, that mean possibility and sometimes hope.The peace symbol of the 1960s and 1970s is now associated with long-haired hippie types which has meaning for different groups. There are units of language (poems, essays), colors, images, objects (soda brands, bow ties, frames of glasses) that mean something for particular groups. Sometimes there are individual people who become artifact-like (think of Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, Fredrick Douglass) where mere mention of their name and years of struggle and work are understood.

Purpose: Find an artifact that groups of people can identify with, whether they agree or disagree. How relevant is the artifact today? What is the artifact's history? Pay attention to generation, region, gender, socio-economic class, and political influence.

Assignment: Bring your artifact to class. Be prepared to give a 2 to 4 minute presentation in class. Your researched (4 to 5 citations) paper (4-5 pages) is due the following Tuesday.