Hi everyone,
I hope you’ve all been having a great summer. I am very excited to be teaching the senior seminar again this year, along with the History department’s newest professor, Danya Pilgrim, who some of you may have met this past spring.
We’ll be meeting Mondays 12:10 to 2 pm in English House Seminar Room 2. We're still finalizing the syllabus and schedule, but we have one short assignment we’re asking everyone to complete in advance of our first class on Monday August 31.
By Sunday night (11:59 pm), August 30, please upload to Moodle (as a Word doc or PDF) a one- or two-paragraph mini-proposal for a potential capstone project, addressing the following questions:
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What is the general topic you hope to explore?
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What are the key questions you hope to answer?
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What kind of archival (primary) sources might you look for? And/or who do you see as the key voices or historic actors whose story you want to trace?
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Why is this topic / why are these questions significant? What’s at stake in tracing this history?
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What form do you think the project will take? Most students write a 20-25 page essay, but you may also produce an alternative assignment — for example, a digital project, a proposal for future research (approximately 15-20 pages); or a syllabus for a course with a supporting document (approximately 10-15 pages) explaining why and how it is designed and to what pedagogical ends. Whatever form it takes, the final project should articulate your research question and your findings, demonstrate competency with primary and secondary sources on which your project is based, and be supported by evidence and rigorous analysis.
Your topic may build on something you’ve worked on before, or it could be something totally new. You are not committing to a topic, but please do take some time with the assignment. The senior seminar is an opportunity to delve deeper into a topic than you have gotten to before, so one key goal is to figure out a topic you’ll feel excited to spend a semester (or longer) with. If you are still between topics, you may submit two mini-proposals.
Please also be prepared to speak for a few minutes during the first class about your prospective topic.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
All best,
SV