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Take-home midterm (distributed in class)
RESPONSE PAPERS
You must turn in two response papers in the course of the
quarter, due in class (check
reading assignments schedule for dates). Each response paper should be around two
pages in length, typed (not handwritten, please) and double-spaced in a
reasonably sized font (I suggest Times New
Roman, 12 pt.). Avoid overly colloquial
language, organize your thoughts, and use this opportunity to explore your own
intellectual reaction to the course materials. Choose to respond to
readings that have peaked your interest.
The response paper should be based on your own reflections on that week's readings. Keep in mind these are analytical responses, not emotional responses. Please do not explain why you did or did not like a particular reading, why it made you sad, angry, happy, or scared. It is okay to use the first person singular pronoun ("I"). Respond as a student of women's history and a student of early Christianity. Some questions you may choose to respond to:
In response to
secondary literature:
• what issues have these readings raised that were
unexpected? predictable?
• what forms of argumentation were more or less persuasive?
• how have these readings changed the way you think about issues such as gender,
sexuality, religion, or history?
• are the points raised in this article/essay applicable only to ancient
Christian writings on women?
In response to
primary literature:
• were the representations/characterizations of women surprising or
predictable?
• did you think these texts were "about" women, or do women and gender
issues come out in them only because of this course's focus?
• are men and women portrayed differently in this text/these texts?
• could such a text have been written in the modern period?
You may respond to any of these questions, or
none them. Pick a focus that interests you, and engage with the readings.
Be prepared to explain (briefly) in class why you have chosen to respond this
particular week, and how you framed your response.
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(click link to the assignment)
PAPER PROPOSAL (due February 15 in class)
Choose a female figure from the early Christian period (either from the course readings, outside research, or consultation with the professor; a list of possible subjects may be found Possible Paper Topics). In 150 words or fewer, write the following:
• Who this person is (this will obviously not be a
detailed description; perhaps merely when and where she lived)
• What drew your interest to her (this may be a variety of reasons, not
necessarily related to course readings)
• What you would like to find out about her (this may be as simple as
"everything there is to know," or as specific as "why she did what she did")
• What
primary sources does she appear in
example (NOTE: this is a fictitious character):
I would like to research Beulah the Magnificent. Beulah was the first Christian queen of the Madeuppians, a tribe in early medieval France. She lived around the year 500, and is known for converting her husband, the Madeuppian king Whozis, to Christianity along with all of the other Madeuppians. I would like to know how common it was for women, especially royal women, to be the first to convert to Christianity in this period, and how successful they were in converting their husbands and people. Did queens like Beulah gain or lose power by becoming Christian? I would also like to know if Beulah was a real person or just a legendary figure. Beulah appears in the Longwind's "History of the Madeuppians" and also in Pious Prudus' "Sermon on St. Beulah" (both in Sheila Herstory's Ancient Christian Queens).
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PAPER BIBLIOGRAPHY (due March 4 in class)
Compile a list of at least six secondary sources that you plan to consult in writing your paper. At least two of these sources should be scholarly articles. You may list websites, but only if they are academic essays or other scholarly resources found on-line (if you are unsure, consult with the professor). You may include "general" resources, such as encyclopedia articles or introductory sources. Feel free to use materials from the course syllabus. Relevant sources need not relate directly to your female subject; for example, you may find that a general history of antiquity, or a general treatment of women's issues in different periods, may provide valuable insight into your own subject.
For each source, indicate its availability (is it easily accessible at Rivera, will you need to recall it, order it from another library, and so forth) and what sort of information or ideas you think it will provide in order to help you complete your proposed paper. It may turn out that you are wrong: you may not get the information you want, you may find things you never expected. You do not need to have read all of your sources, just make sure they exist and that you can acquire them.
Bibliographies should be typed and double-spaced.
Please follow the following bibliographic method (also, see the examples):
• for books: Author. Title. City: Publisher,
Date.
• for articles: Author. "Article Title." Journal/Encyclopedia
Name. Volume (Year): First page-Last page.
example (NOTE: most of these sources are fictitious, although some are taken from the course syllabus):
Bibliography for Beulah the Magnificent
Elizabeth A. Clark. "Holy Women, Holy Words: Early Christian Women, Social History, and the Linguistic Turn." Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998): 413-30. This essay is found on-line through the course syllabus. I think this article will help me decide how to understand Beulah as a literary character and a historical person.
Jane Doe. Medieval French Queens: An Introduction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1976. This book is at Rivera library, and I have checked it out (or: I will check it out). I will use this book to compare Beulah to other medieval Christian queens. There may also be information on Beulah herself.
John Roe. "Beulah, Queen (Madeuppians)." Encyclopedia of Medieval Personalities 2 (1987): 323-24. This encyclopedia is found in the Rivera Reference Room. This article should contain all of the relevant history of Beulah and her life and conversion.
Sarah Soe. "Medieval Queens and Christianity: Conversion or Coercion?" Diotima Website: (http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/soemed.shtml). This essay may give a historical context for Christian conversion of medieval queens like Beulah, and also place them in the context of women's history and gender studies.
Peter Brown. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. The last chapter of this book is on the early middle ages, so I hope to be able to connect Beulah to earlier female figures of Christianity and the history of Christian sexuality.
Caroline Schroeder. "Francia as Christendom: The
Merovingian Vita Domnae Balthildis." Medieval Encounters 4 (1998):
265-84. This article talks about medieval France and Christianity, and may
give some context for Beulah's life.
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Your final research project on a female figure from early Christian history is due Friday, March 22 to the religious studies department office (HMNSS 1609) before the close of business (to avoid finding yourself before a locked door and closed office, I suggest you aim for 3 or 4 o'clock at the very latest). If you would like your paper returned to you over break, you may paper clip an envelope with your address on it, and I will put in the mail once all grading is completed. Otherwise, you may come see me after spring break if you want to retrieve your paper with comments.
Format
The paper should be between eight and twelve pages in length
(yes, this is a wide range; I am less concerned with length as I am with
analysis and depth). The entire paper should be typed, double-spaced
(please use a reasonable font in a reasonable size, such as
Times New Roman, 12-pt.,
with reasonable margins [no more than 1.25 " on any side]). Hopefully the
wide range of possible page lengths will encourage you not to waste time padding
through clever formatting tricks.
You may cite your primary and secondary sources any way you see fit: through footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical notation. Just make sure your citations are consistent (do not use parenthetical notation on one page, footnotes on another). At the end of your paper, include a list of all sources cited and consulted in the process of completing your project (class discussions and lectures are a reasonable source for this). Follow the same bibliography format as above.
A note on citation and plagiarism: Any time you make reference--in quotations or not--to the original ideas or information provided by someone else, you must provide a citation. You must use your judgment in deciding was constitutes "common knowledge" (for example: "ancient Gaul is modern France") and what constitutes particular knowledge that you would not know were it not for another person's work (for example: "most scholars agree that Beulah is a historical figure, and not just a legend" [Roe 1987: 323]). Failure to provide such references is tantamount to passing off someone else's work as your own, which is plagiarism (needless to say, copying someone else's words without quotation or reference is unquestionably plagiarism).
Any paper which has been partly or completely plagiarized will receive a 0 (not just an F: a 0). If you are at all unsure about citation, plagiarism, or any of these issues, please discuss it with the professor.
Content and Organization
The point of these final papers is to gain an appreciation of the benefits
and pitfalls of studying ancient Christian women. Since professional
scholars have been doing research in this area for more decades than many of you
have been alive, it is unlikely that you will produce an entirely original,
unexpected, field-changing paper. This does not mean, however, that
your ideas and insights are not valuable, original, and worthwhile.
Ideally, you will have learned enough about feminism, women's history, religious
studies, and the particular aspects of women in early Christianity by the time
you produce this final paper to write something that is of interest to you and
your classmates and your professor.
At the center of your paper should be a single (but not simple) question: What can we know about X and how can we know it? (where X is the female figure you are researching). Certainly additional questions may come up in the course of you want to address: Why should we care about this person? Does she tell us something about history, about gender, about women, about religion that we would not know otherwise? Do we know her through her own words, or through someone else's representation? Does that make a difference? You do not need to have an overarching thesis ("Beulah really lived and really converted the Madeuppians, and I can prove it"), but you do need to demonstrate critical analytical skills.
All of these questions and more may occur to you as you are researching and writing your paper, and you may choose any broader framework that you like, including but not limited to: feminist theology, women's religious identity, gender roles throughout history, the problems of gender studies in the modern university and so forth. Or you may simply frame you paper as an exploration without any connection to broader intellectual issues ("The purpose of this paper is merely to explore what different images of Beulah have appeared throughout history").
However you decide to approach your female figure, keep in mind the following suggestions:
1. Organize your presentation. Even if you do not have a thesis, you should still have an organizing principle for your paper. For example:
Beulah the magnificent appears in literature and artwork in at least four different roles: as virgin bride, as Christian saint, as miracle worker, and as Madeuppian queen-mother.
This example gives you a framework to organize your materials into a coherent presentation, so that your reader has some idea of how the paper will flow. You can then outline your paper in a way that incorporates your research in interesting, sensible fashion.
2. Include your own analysis. Critical thinking is the ability to question everything: not in a suspicious, paranoid, unbalanced way, but in a way that acknowledges that none of us is a machine. We all speak from particular positions, often with agendas (spoken and unspoken), and this is no less true of professional scholars than it is of ancient authors. Question everything, and use your own experience reading this material (throughout the quarter) to provide some interesting and original analysis where appropriate. For example:
Most readers of the "Life of Beulah" focus on her role as queen of the Madeuppians, and do not pay attention to the first chapters about her childhood. Perhaps this is because her importance in later centuries was in her role as Christian missionary to her own people; but by focusing equally on the story of Beulah's miraculous birth and her engagement to Whozis, we also discover the importance of Beulah as a virgin bride figure, much like the Virgin Mary.
Here you include an analysis of scholarship ("most readers of the Life...") as well as an original way of approaching the primary literature ("the story of Beulah's miraculous birth..."). Read critically, read openly, write analytically.
3. Do not overly personalize. This is a research paper, not a personal response. Of course it is entirely appropriate (and expected) that you will develop some personal reaction to your subject; otherwise, what would be the point of studying this material? But the purpose of this paper is collect, organize, and analyze primary and secondary literature on a female figure of early Christianity. Do not digress into personal opinions, for example:
I think Beulah was an amazing and courageous woman, standing up to Whozis the way she did. I wish more women could be like that, and she has become my own personal hero.
or
Beulah was such a passive woman, I can't believe how she let the bishops walk all over her, and she even let religion interfere with her husband and children. This is what I think is wrong with mixing religion, family, and politics.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with evaluating other writers' reactions and addressing them critically. For example:
Many readers of the Life of Beulah praise her for her religious conviction, while others condemn her for putting religion before family and national loyalty (Soe).
4. Read your paper out loud before turning it in. This sounds stupid, it sounds like a waste of time, it sounds crazy--but it works. You will find typos you didn't notice, sentences you never finished, thoughts that suddenly make no sense to you. If you have a friend you trust (and who is very patient) you might ask them to read your essay to you, so you can hear how it sounds. If someone you know and trust can't make it through your paper without stumbling or asking, "Is that what you meant to say?" then your reader probably won't, either.
5. Spell-check. In the year 2001, there is almost no excuse for misspelled words. While I won't say "spelling counts," every moment you make your reader struggle to understand you through typos, mistakes in grammar or spelling, or unclear language is further distance you put between yourself and your reader, and your presentation will suddenly become less effective.
If you have any questions or problems during the writing of your paper, please do not hesitate to contact the professor for help or guidance.