Modern European
Intellectual History II
1750 Ð Present
Spring Semester, 2007
Assignment for Final Essay Project
Due Monday, May 14 Before 12 noon
Requirements:
Length: A
typed paper of approximately 3000 words (c. 10 typed pages).
Source
Material: Course material studied this semester as contained on the course
syllabus and web page (http://www.hist.umn.edu/shank/hist3282/). You may consult other sources as well if you desire,
but consultation of sources not on the syllabus is not required. If you do use
outside sources be sure to document them through in-text citations and a
bibliography (if necessary). For guidelines about citations see below.
Due:
Assignment:
Your assignment is very simple. I want
you to:
1.)
Choose a contemporary
topic or problem of interest to you and submit your chosen topic to a
philosophical analysis.
2.)
Develop your essay
through the use of at least four thinkers or texts studied this semester.
3.)
Choose at least one
thinker or text from each third of the course in developing your essay. The
in-class quizzes mark each third of the course, so you need one text from the
period before February 15, one from the period between February 16 and March 23
(include Darwin in this second group), and one from the period after March 24.
If this is not clear, please ask for clarification.
There are many good ways to satisfy
this assignment so here are some guidelines to help you in formulating your
essay.
Guidelines:
In choosing a paper topic, be sure to think creatively and imaginatively. A debatable point or problem (like, say, the Iraq war or gay marriage) would make for a great paper, but great papers can also be written about less overtly argumentative topics. Indeed, while your critical essay paper is intended to be an analytical textual analysis and argumentative essay, I encourage you to think about this paper more broadly. Essays sometimes try to explore all sides of a complex topic without having a clearly defined thesis. Such an essay would be appropriate here. Similarly, other essays attempt to deconstruct an issue or topic without trying to offer any answers or remedies to the problem described. These approaches too are appropriate for this essay. You have been exposed to a lot of different kinds of philosophical writing this term, from Kantian analytical critique to Nietzschean aphorism, and I encourage you to use this paper to adopt the genre and style of language you feel most drawn to. So long as it meets the three criteria above, all varieties of essays will be acceptable for this assignment.
What do I mean by Òa philosophical analysisÓ and how should you use the texts in the course? What I have in mind falls between two extremes: a personal opinion paper on the one hand and a historical reconstruction of past thought on the other. To avoid the first, recognize that your job is to develop a set of precise, philosophical justifications for your ideas and to explore and explain those justifications within the core of your paper. Here is where the thinkers we have studied will be of use to you. How does Hume, or Rousseau, or Marx, or Heidegger help you to think about and understand your topic? How might they think about it? What questions and analyses would they offer? How is their thinking like or unlike yours? Can viewing the topic in Marxist (or Freudian, or Nietzchean, or Derridean, or... ) terms help you to illuminate your point? Is the influence of Darwinian (or Marxist, or Freudian, or Nietzchean, or Derridean, or...) thinking in your topic the very thing that needs to be deconstructed? In each of these cases, what you are doing in asking and answering the questions that your topic poses by using the concepts, ideas, arguments, and problems of the philosophical discourse of modernity. That is exactly your assignment. At the same time, however, do not forget that in the end this is your philosophical analysis of this problem or topic. In other words, a paper that simply reconstructs what these historical figures would say about this issue is not the same thing as doing your own philosophical analysis of it. It is important that you do the latter (i.e. write your own philosophical analysis) so also avoid the other extreme of letting the historical thinkers and texts you chose overwhelm your own ideas and philosophical analysis. In the end, the best papers will be original and personal philosophical discussions built upon the shoulders of the texts and thinkers we have studied.
I will be glad to talk with you individually about your paper topic and ideas so please feel free to consult with me.
Technical
Requirements:
It is important that your essay be entirely your own work so please do not discuss the questions or your essay with anyone in the class. To do so is to violate the University Honor Code. Similarly we will not use class time to directly address the assignment. You can consult with me individually if you have any questions or concerns.
When citing source materials, use the following rule: if you use a text on the syllabus and the edition that is for sale in the bookstore, then simply cite the work from which you are quoting briefly in the text by noting the authorÕs name, the text, and the page number. (i.e. Hume, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p.125). If you use another edition, use the same format but note the publication information for the edition you are using as well (Hume, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 198). If you use other source material not on the syllabus at all then use a full citation of author, title, publisher, publication date, page number (i.e. Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (W.W. Norton, 1968), pp. 320-35.)
You are encouraged to work exclusively with the course materials and to avoid external research. If you do consult other books or research materials, however, then be sure to cite these works in your essay. To fail to do so is to plagiarize, a very serious offense. The same rule applies for web sites, encyclopedias, and any other source material. To be safe, either restrict yourself to the course materials alone in making your arguments or meticulously cite all your sources in the text.
In-text citations are fine, so only add a separate bibliography if you have consulted outside sources.