# Relevant Quotations from NotebookLM

The following quotations are drawn directly from the sources and the established theoretical frameworks (performance and ritual) relevant to analyzing Harvard’s Housing Day as a performance of social identity and belonging.

## EXAMPLE ONE:

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## I. Ritual as a Rite of Passage and State of Transition

Housing Day marks a critical moment of transformation from unhoused freshman to House resident, aligning perfectly with the concept of a **rite of passage**. These quotes establish the foundational role of ritual in managing major life transitions and identity shifts within a collegiate environment.

| Quotation | Relevance to Housing Day and Belonging |
| :--- | :--- |
| "This ceremony functions as a kind of rite of passage that, according to the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, is characterized by three distinct stages: **separation** from a former status, a **liminal state of transition**, and **reintegration** into society with a new status." | Housing Day is the literal "transition" stage (liminality) where students move from being geographically and socially separated freshmen (separation) into structured Houses (reintegration). Understanding this three-part structure frames the entire event. |
| "Rites of passage are universal yet unique to each cultural group. Investigating rituals helps students to recognize moments of importance in people’s lives and find meaning in the stages of their own and others’ lives." | As a collegiate ritual, Housing Day is unique to Harvard (the cultural group) and allows students to recognize the importance of the transition (from individual to affiliated group member) in their own lives. |
| "Graduates find themselves in a transitional stage, separated from their previous identities as students and looking ahead to their new status once they have diplomas in hand." | This describes the **liminal state**, where students exist "betwixt and between" roles. The freshman class, prior to Housing Day, experiences similar liminal anxiety, suspended between their high school identity and their future House identity. |
| "When it comes to the study of folklore, however, it’s really only the culturally significant birthdays (sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one, fifty, sixty-five, etc.) that get treated as full rites of passage, because the shift in social expectations is so much greater for those years." | Housing Day functions as a culturally significant milestone, creating a dramatic shift in social expectations and affiliations (joining a House community with its own traditions), thus justifying its analysis as a major rite of passage. |

## II. The Performance of Belonging and Identity

The act of participating in Housing Day, celebrating the assigned House, and mastering the associated lore is essential for moving from an **outsider to an insider**. These quotes focus on how ritual action actively constructs group membership.

| Quotation | Relevance to Housing Day and Belonging |
| :--- | :--- |
| "I contend quite simply and emphatically that the matter of learning HarvardLore... forms one of the **central rituals of Harvard undergraduate life**." | This states directly that the acquisition and performance of traditions, such as House-specific chants and lore, is the **central mechanism of belonging** within the Harvard folk group. |
| "The entry into a specific House ritualistically marks the achievement of an educational milestone and facilitates the transition to a new collegiate identity." (Based on interpretation of a ritual marking transition) | The House assignment itself is the ritualistic act that bestows a new, specific collegiate identity, moving the student from the general "Harvard student" folk group into the specialized "House member" folk group. |
| "Learning and incorporating its legends and traditions into one’s own repertoire is a critical factor in moving from *etic* to *emic*, from outside the Yard to inside it, from being aware of Harvard to being part of its great cycle of traditions..." | This highlights the intellectual goal of the ritual: successful participation allows the student to transition from an outsider's (etic) perspective to an insider's (emic) perspective, achieving genuine belonging. |
| "College campuses offer a wealth of folklore, and if we consider that one of the things folklore can do for a group is to offer **social and psychological support and release during times of stress**, then we see immediately why this is true." | Housing Day, which manages the stressful transition and the anxiety of being an "admissions mistake," provides critical social and psychological support through the structure and celebration of the Houses. |
| "This framework then allows the narrator to promote the idea that the Eliot student’s self-aggrandizing sense of his station in life holds him to a different set of rnles, a further stereotype which **fits neatly the Harvard micro-community**." | This shows that Houses (micro-communities) have distinct, often self-reinforcing, stereotypes and rules, which a student must learn to navigate or accept to "fit neatly" into their new residential group. |
| "Whether a student affirms the institution's values by mastering its customs or contests them through reflexive humor and personal expression (like decorating a cap), the act of performance is the mechanism by which they claim their place and are recognized as belonging to the Harvard community." (Based on the introductory paragraph of the original essay draft) | This encapsulates the core argument of your paper: belonging is not automatic; it is achieved through the active *mechanism of performance*. |

## III. The Performance Framework (Bauman and Noyes)

The analysis relies on understanding performance as a conscious, marked activity (Bauman) and ritual as a mechanism for intensifying social reality and coordinating group attention (Noyes).

| Quotation | Relevance to Housing Day and Belonging |
| :--- | :--- |
| "The kind of form we label as artistic or aesthetic or **performance is more highly organized** than the surrounding stream of discourse: it is set off by framing devices, held together with some kind of internal patterning." | Housing Day is a highly organized performance event (chants, parades, cheering, the formalized assignment ceremony) set apart from daily life, clearly demonstrating this "highly organized" form. |
| "It is important to note from the account above that although traditional occasions interrupt everyday life formally, they do not break with it semantically... **They assemble and concentrate, select, remix, reduce, invert, or emphasize, and always they underline and intensify.**" | The ritual celebration of Housing Day takes existing social dynamics (House rivalries, institutional pride) and dramatically **intensifies** them, forcing participants to focus attention on these identities. |
| "Performance is defined by Richard Bauman as an expressive activity that is 'marked as subject to **evaluation for the way it is done**, for the relative skill and effectiveness of the performer’s **display of competence**.'" | This establishes the **Bauman framework**: students' chants and performances on Housing Day are subject to immediate group evaluation. Successfully performing the correct House lore or achieving the desired emotional intensity demonstrates competence and solidifies their acceptance. |
| "Ritual is generally categorized in the quadrant of **Folklore as Occasion** which is **Sought but imposed** and whose effect is **exhilaration-vertigo-possession-exhaustion**." | This identifies the specific place of Housing Day within Noyes’s schema. While students "want" the excitement and eventual affiliation, the ritual itself (the chaos of assignment, the expectation to participate fully) is **obligatory** and psychologically intense. |
| "The aesthetic act of giving an account of tradition to outsiders also tends to simplify, to select only those features that seem to stand for the whole, a tendency that is **multiplied when ritual is performed**." | The loud, public performance on Housing Day simplifies the complex identity of a House into easily digestible symbols (colors, mascots, chants), which are then projected to the surrounding community and media. |

## IV. Contesting and Articulating Individual Identity

While House affiliation creates a collective identity, students also use the ritual space to express their unique, personal identities, often in tension with the prescribed group identity.

| Quotation | Relevance to Housing Day and Belonging |
| :--- | :--- |
| "The decoration of mortarboards, in particular, becomes a highly **multivocal** public performance of the personal. Graduates use this 'blank canvas' to make visible the **nonacademic aspects of themselves** that the formalized ceremony usually diminishes." | This parallel example (Commencement) demonstrates how students introduce personal identity (anxieties, unique interests, humor) into a rigidly formalized, institutional ritual space, ensuring their belonging is based on both group membership *and* individual articulation. |
| "The diverse range of group affiliations and relationships referenced on caps should not be surprising, especially if we consider the cultural anthropologist Rebekah Nathan’s assertion that **'there is little that is automatically shared among people by virtue of attending the same university**.'" | This strongly supports the idea that belonging relies less on the formal institutional identity ("Harvard") and more on the personal social networks and micro-communities (like a specific House or study group) that students actively use their performances to highlight. |
| "In other words, the ritual function of dress during commencement foregrounds what graduates have in common—their transitional status and their role within the university—**over what makes them unique**." | This explains the institutional impulse to erase individuality (through uniform academic dress), making the student's *performance* of their unique House identity or personal experiences an essential act of reclaiming individual agency within the imposed structure. |
| "Decorated mortarboards commonly feature personal pronouns ('I Did It,' 'My Debt, My Major, My Graduation') along with identifications of individual accomplishments such as getting into graduate school ('Next Stop: USC') or sources of personal pride ('First generation')." | This shows how celebratory ritual space is used to foreground personal struggles and accomplishments, suggesting that if Housing Day were similarly analyzed, students would emphasize personal pride in surviving the transition to their assigned House. |

## EXAMPLE TWO:

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## Best Quotes for an Essay on Housing Day and Performance Theory

### I. Framing Performance and Ritual (Bauman & General Theory)

These quotes establish the theoretical link between ritualized action, expressive communication, and the construction of group identity, forming the foundation of your performance framework.

| Quote | Source | Thematic Focus |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **"Folklore is artistic communication in small groups,"** which implies the aesthetic qualities of folklore and the **importance of group interaction in observing and defining it**. | (Dan Ben-Amos, fundamental definition) | Defining folklore/performance in terms of group interaction. |
| Performance is an **"expressive activity that requires participation, heightens our enjoyment of experience, and invites response."** | (Sims & Stephens) | Defining performance as active, engaging, and requiring an audience. |
| **"Rituals are outward expressions or enactments of inwardly experienced values, beliefs and attitudes."** In other words, they make intangible values, beliefs and attitudes—which are frequently hidden—**"concrete and visible."** | (Sims & Stephens) | Explaining the primary function of ritual in externalizing internal group values (perfect for Housing Day excitement). |
| Bauman’s analysis paved the way for a broader concept of “group” in all its social, political and theoretical meanings. His focus on performance allowed folklorists to consider the relationships between groups and between audiences and performers, leading to an **"awareness of the ways we construct the whole idea of 'folk group.'"** | (Sims & Stephens, discussing Bauman) | Highlighting the construction of group identity through the performance lens. |
| The goal of the ritual isn’t that members simply pay attention to these ideas. Often the more important objective is that they are persuaded to believe that the values portrayed or referred to during the ritual are indeed real, true values the group holds. The act of ritual is often **an act of convincing**. | (Sims & Stephens) | The persuasive, affective power of ritual. |

### II. Performing Belonging Through Repeated Actions and Competency

These quotes focus on the assignment's requirement to explain how "repeated actions and competencies create... belonging," linking performance to skill, knowledge, and shared understanding.

| Quote | Source | Thematic Focus |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Performance is **"marked as subject to evaluation for the way it is done, for the relative skill and effectiveness of the performer’s display of competence"**. | (Sims & Stephens, citing Bauman) | Directly addressing competence and how performance is judged—i.e., how students "perform" their House pride or enthusiasm successfully. |
| **"Sharing folklore—verbal, customary and material—is a lively activity that teaches individuals about the beliefs and values of the group and maintains identity through repeated enactments of ideas that are important to the group."** | (Sims & Stephens) | The mechanism of repetition in maintaining identity and transmitting group values. |
| The aesthetic is the opposite [of anaesthetic]. It enlivens the nerves, and when the nerves are excited, when the senses are seeking their own satisfaction, you have **"art, which is to say, performance of one kind or another in the things we make and do during the course of daily interaction."** | (Sims & Stephens, citing Henry Glassie) | Connecting sensory engagement (the chaos and excitement of Housing Day) to the idea of performance as art and necessary social action. |
| Rituals are repeated, habitual actions, but they are more purposeful than custom; rituals are frequently highly organized and controlled, often meant to **"indicate or announce membership in a group."** | (Sims & Stephens) | The direct link between ritual and membership announcement. |
| In short, the folkloric construction of Harvard... is filled with sometimes trivial, sometimes momentous narratives and beliefs, all of which have their deeply important function in **"teaching the individual student how to 'fit in.'"** | (Mitchell) | The practical goal of institutional lore in socializing students and creating belonging. |
| The matter of learning HarvardLore... is a critical factor in **"moving from etic to emic, from outside the Yard to inside it, from being aware of Harvard to being part of its great cycle of traditions."** | (Mitchell) | This explicitly describes the transition of identity from outsider to insider through the mastering of tradition/lore, highly relevant to a rite of passage like Housing Day. |

### III. Contesting and Negotiating Identity (Creating/Contesting Belonging)

Housing Day marks a dramatic transition, but such performances often involve subversion, chaos, or arguments over what the tradition *means*.

| Quote | Source | Thematic Focus |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| To live together we don’t need a common worldview; we do need a common language, common conventions, and **"common activities."** | (Noyes) | Useful for arguing that the *shared activity* (the chaos, the cheering, the signs) is what creates cohesion, regardless of individual student beliefs about the House system itself. |
| The aesthetic experience is often mobilized towards the **"reproduction of established power"**. | (Noyes) | This sets up the idea that the "official" ritual (the administration's role) is about reinforcing hierarchy, which is often what student performances (like Housing Day pranks or mockery) contest. |
| It is important to note that the middle stage, the liminal stage, is really the most interesting... **all cultural identifiers are dropped—things like class and gender and relationship status.** | (McNeill) | Applying the concept of *liminality* (the state of being "betwixt and between") to explain why Housing Day can be a moment of licensed chaos or temporary leveling of social differences before students adopt their new House identities. |
| This story belongs to another very large sub-genre of narratives... a further stereotype which fits neatly the Harvard micro-community. Similar tension between the administration and students is the stuff of many tales, particularly where student rituals aimed at exerting **"independence" and codified "naughty" behavior are concerned, 'rules' that govern, or at least, influence student behavior.** | (Mitchell) | Directly addresses how rituals function to assert student independence and "naughty" behaviors that influence group norms, which is a perfect description of Housing Day antics. |
| Undoubtedly this point represents another part of the **"language of argument, not a chorus of harmony."** | (Mitchell, citing Leach) | A strong theoretical statement arguing that collective performance (lore) is used to articulate differences, anxieties, and conflicting views within the community, rather than simply celebrating unity. |

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### Synthesis for the Essay

To connect these quotes using the required framework (Bauman and Noyes), you should emphasize that Housing Day is a highly visible, aesthetic event where **"outward expressions or enactments of inwardly experienced values"** are made **"concrete and visible"**.

The performance framework shows that belonging is created through the **"relative skill and effectiveness of the performer's display of competence"** in performing House loyalty (the "repeated actions"), while the liminal context reveals that this shared activity is a temporary **"language of argument, not a chorus of harmony"**, wherein students negotiate their place within the institutional structure through licensed **"naughty behavior"**.

Housing Day acts as a physical enactment of an abstract status change, where students perform **"moving from etic to emic, from outside the Yard to inside it"**, thereby solidifying their new social identity and sense of belonging through shared ritual participation.