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A Study At The Library Alone Essay

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The main argument of this paper is that most people are socialized to study at a specific spot. We will be focusing on people who come to study at the library alone. Most people become comfortable at a specific space in the library because of a general habitus of finding a space that is considered their “own place” to study at. In Becoming a firefighter, Matthew Desmond describes a general habitus as a “system of dispositions and ways about and acting in the world that is constituted early on in life” (Desmond, Ethnograhy, 391). Humans are disposed to studying in the same secluded spot because we take ownership of the space. Charles Horton Cooley writes in The looking glass self that “if we think of a secluded part of the woods as ‘ours’, it is because we think, also that others do not go there”(Cooley, The Presentation of Self in Everday Life ,32). People often think of their usual study space as theirs. Therefore, when entering the library, they often head straight for their space. When I was writing this paper, it was harder for me to separate my habits from other people`s and just sticking to my observations. I also struggled with identifying a phenomenon because many of the behaviors displayed would be considered normal behaviors. After reading Desmond`s theory on habitism in Becoming a firefighter, I came to the conclusion that they were normal because at Bard we are socialized to act a certain way. I believe that the strongest aspect of my paper is how I analyze the

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