My first item is the campus music magazine, "Eleven." This magazine had a special on a WILD preview, with the main picture a student lying on the grass, presumably passed out drunk. Around his sprawled hand, personal objects lay askew, forgotten temporarily in the wake of drunken stupor. Implied in this (staged) picture is a bevy of information and argument about Campus drinking policies. If I used this picture, or something like it from a student publication, I could write about college drinking policies and the students' perception of them. Are they feared or considered a joke? Are their rules well-known or obscure? Especially at Wash U, where the drinking policy has a unique bent, this paper topic would be interesting.
My second cultural object is concerns the CD jackets of two albums I recently downloaded from Ruckus--"Let's get free" by the rap group Dead Prez, and "At war with the mystics" by the Flaming Lips. When I looked up the corresponding album jackets, I was very surprised at their differing themes. The Flaming Lips, a staple of indie rock, had a dreamy image of a small figure facing some sort of large explosion of color. The overarching theme of this picture is the figure's inferiority to whatever force is threatening to overtaking. Needless to say, the album cover is very abstract. On the other hand, the Dead Prez album depicts ranks of young, black soldiers pointing their guns to the air and yelling. These soldiers are probably child soldiers in Africa. This image gives an entirely different feeling than the first. It obviously has more of a concrete, cultural message, one that coincides with Dead Prez's nationalistic lyrics. In a paper I would explore the larger differences between the rock album and the rap album--namely in meaning and intentions of the lyrics.
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When you select a cultural text, remember that your primary job will be to make an argument about that object rather than use it as a launching point for a wider cultural investigation (such as questions as to whether students take the policies seriously, etc). The text you select should be interesting and deep enough to sustain intense scrutiny. You certainly might discuss representations and dissemination of alcohol policies on university campuses, but you'll need to frame it in a way that lends itself to additional scholarly research.
Oops, I forgot to mention something. Anywho...
I don't really listen to rap, but I probably have enough experience to say that the lyrics in rap are more associated with societal dilemmas and sensitive issues (race, gender, etc.) than those of the rock genre. Also, it's interesting that you pointed out the differences in album covers. I think that the CD covers of many indie rock bands are largely abstract and sometimes completely irrelevant to the intention of the songs. I'm sure rap album covers are a lot different...
I find that the comparison of drinking policies on different campuses will be extremely interesting, and you should also look at the cultural implications that these policies have (e.g. do some ethnicities drink more than others.)
Drinking policies can be quite different from one university to another. When I was an undergradute, my college began to let students drink in more locations (shared living and TV rooms, etc) as long as the event was regestered with the Hall Committee. This was at the same time that other campuses were going dry because of a number of drinking-related fatalities.
Although reading policies can seem dry (no pun intended) they can also be quite interesting (the previous REAs on the Wash U mission statement, the Philadephia conduct codes, etc. really focused on the authoritarian, collaborative, etc rhetoric of the documents inquestion).
Here's a link to the drinking policy for my alma mater:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/dos/12929.shtml
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