HSRU-1000 DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEST: Final Essay
Handout Fall 2005
Instructor:
Tomas Zahora
Write an essay that will trace the development,
within the period of time under discussion, of an issue/point of view/political
or social or intellectual problem or question that you find intriguing or
particularly relevant. Begin by selecting a theme from one or more of the
assigned primary sources (for example, you can start by comparing the vision of a society presented by Mill
with that presented by Marx; or look at the treatment of women in Candide in light of what Virginia Woolf
has to say in A Room of One’s Own).
Possible topics. Anything that has to do with the assigned
readings, as long as it is based on the texts themselves and is interpreted in
light of what we have done in class so far. You do not need to confine
yourselves to obvious topics like Romanticism in Frankenstein or Enlightenment
in Candide.
Essay abstract, annotated bibliography: Research the treatment of your subject by
contemporaneous writers or modern historians, and build up a brief annotated
bibliography consisting of at least six secondary sources. One out of six
sources may be an internet website; the rest should consist of scholarly books
and articles. Present your findings together with a paragraph-long abstract of
your planned essay. Format of the
annotated bibliography: Annotated bibliography is a list of books or
articles with brief annotations that summarize their main arguments and
contents. Historians tend to use the Chicago Manual of Style or Turabian’s
handbook; if you are used to MLA or other formats, you can use those, as long
as you are consistent. Example of an entry:
Johnson, Eleanor, and Michael Hollingbroke. Why Historians are Always Wrong: A
Reinterpretation of Marx’s Historical Theory. Bloomington, Ind.: University
of Indiana, 1995.
A
radical interpretation of Marx’s view of history, which argues that Marx
simplified Hegel’s historical model and adjusted it to fit his economic program.
Johnson and Hollingbroke show examples of Marx’s skewing of data and omitting
important segments of Hegel’s arguments. The book’s conclusion is that these
omissions undermine his three-stage historical model and make the communist
society of the future a highly improbable utopia.
Essay format. 7
pages, Double-spaced main text, single-spaced block quotations. 1’’ margins,
12-size font.
Needless
to say, an essay should have a
beginning, a body, and a conclusion, and should present an argument or thesis, for example “In Candide,
Voltaire is presenting a negative evaluation of the Enlightenment, and
prefigures the values of the Romantics,” or “Shelley’s Frankenstein, in its
descriptions of the role of women, reflects an early-nineteenth-century middle
class ideal of womanhood,” etc. Feel free to write about what you find
interesting, but make sure you support
your argument with enough references to the text itself. It might help to
reread the book more than once, and mark passages relevant to your topic; then
go back to those passages, reread them in their context, see what you can
develop as far as a coherent essay is concerned, and use the quotations/text
references/ to build up your argument. Try
to paraphrase, instead of using full quotations, whenever you can express the
meaning of a passage more economically in your own words. How many
references do you need? Let us say at least three per page. Hopefully, you will
be able to select the most relevant ones out of many possible choices, after
having organized them and placed them in their proper context. Rather than counting references,
pretend that the reader knows nothing about the book you are describing: try to
convince your audience with strong, well thought-out statements that clearly
establish what you are saying and where you are coming from.
Due Dates. The annotated bibliography, together with an
abstract of your essay, will be due at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, 21 October. The ESSAY is due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, 2 December. Please e-mail both assignments
to tzahora@highstream.net