HI 460 Cross-Cultural Encounters

Our only class meeting next week will be Wednesday, Feb 17th. You’ll notice there’s no assigned reading, and that’s because you should spend this week reading whatever YOU need to read as you identify and create your initial paper topic.

On Wednesday, please BRING your topic proposal to class as a printed paper (not on laptop / device). The proposal should also be posted as your J4 journal entry by classtime on Wed 2/17.

Of course your topic will undergo some changes, transformations and adjustments over the next few weeks as you engage in vigorous research with the help of our library reference staff and craft your skeleton draft (due March 9th). But this week, try to develop it as fully as you can. A proposal is not what you vaguely hope/wish to write about, it is a realistic plan for research and writing, based on actual sources (secondary and/or primary) that you plan to use and that you definitely know you have access to.

How to develop and narrow a topic appropriately? If you’re stuck, here are some suggestions.

• Check the ideas in chapter 1 of Storey, Writing History, especially his description of a fully-fleshed proposal, p. 28.
• Go back over Beal’s book, Manseau’s book, or check out any of the books I placed on course reserve for ideas.
• Or start with a time period, place, denomination, person or event that interests you, and explore for primary/secondary sources you can use.
• Or start with a primary source or digital archive that you find compelling, and build outward from there with secondary source research to understand its context and meaning.
• Or start with a secondary source (scholar, book, article) that you find compelling and chase her/his footnotes to identify the relevant primary sources and see whether you actually have access to them.