Requirements and Assignments

Class Participation: (20%) Class participation will be based on your attendance, your overall contribution to the discussion, and how prepared you are to engage with the class and subject matter. You should expect to join in all classroom activities and any class discussions. Paying attention to lectures, visual media, AND completing your reading assignments are thus vital to your ability to participate with your classmates.

Google Docs Journal (15%) You are required to make journal entries on your reading assignments. These entries should show real thought on your part. Entries should:

  1. note the major points of the reading
  2. Note at least one open-ended question, per reading, for class

Your journal entries will be graded on completeness, accuracy, depth of critical thinking. Journal entries must be completed prior to the class for which the reading is due.

Discussion Leader: (20%) This course operates as a seminar, utilizing the philosophy of a “flipped classroom,” where students lead class discussions, and teach the articles to the class. It is expected that you will: 1. Summarize or have other students clearly and succinctly review the readings. 2. Pose questions to the group to develop the main ideas, as well as highlighting strengths and weaknesses. 3. Bring in outside resources (films, video clips, news articles, etc.) to highlight important points and to develop the overall discussion.

Annotated Bibliography (5%) Over the course of the semester, each of you will construct a cumulative research paper. You will need to choose a topic for your research early in the semester*. Once you have chosen a topic in consultation with the instructor, you will prepare an annotated bibliography (with at least two books and five articles) on that topic. This bibliography will be due in class on 2 March.

*your research proposal is due on 1 February

Historiographical Essay: (15%)   (2-3pages) Essentially, you are writing a historical analysis of the ways that historians have written about and represented various themes, issues, events.  In the most general sense, you will cover some of the main issues, debates, arguments, books, and scholars within a particular field of historical inquiry.  You may focus in on specific books and arguments to compare and contrast them or they may delineate how a field has changed over time.  In a historiography essay you must synthesize large amounts of information and be able to talk about related elements between books and “schools” or methodologies. This paper will be 2-3 pages (double-spaced)and will be due in class on 27 March.

Final Project: (25%) The final research paper (4-6 pages) or Podcast (9-12 minutes) provides you with an opportunity to explore a topic in depth. I expect you to engage creatively and critically with primary sources and with secondary literature beyond what I have assigned for the course. Your final paper should be well-researched, polished, and proofread, with complete citations and should include the information you researched for your Historiographical State of the Field Essay.

You are required to write a research paper or present a podcast centered on a food and drink consumption and identity throughout world history.

Starting with the primary source records (in translation) of your choice from the classical, early modern, or contemporary period, your goal will be to collect additional information through secondary sources and then to make an argument about how that particular case was connected to a specific cultural, ceremonial/religious, social, and political context — in other words, how did your chosen topic develop at that particular time, in that particular place, with its particular form and consequences?

Official university, archive, or library websites are acceptable sources for your primary source material.

All sources for your paper or podcast (including assigned readings and any information cited from class lectures) must be clearly cited using footnotes formatted according to Chicago Style (unless cleared by me in advance).

You are welcome to come and discuss your ideas with me at any time.

In order to guide you through the process of composing a polished research paper, I ask you to complete interim assignments on which I will give feedback. Each of these will count for 5% of your final project grade. These assignments are: