John S. Ott
Winter 2003
HST 410/510
Sanctity and Deviance in the European Middle Ages
Guidelines
Assignment Guidelines: Critical Historiographical Essay
(Due in my office Tuesday, March 18, by 5:00)
(1) Papers must be typed, titled, and have their pages numbered. Margins should be 1 or 1-1/2 inches, double spacing used, and 12-point font. They should be around 10 pp. long for undergrads, slightly longer for grads.
(2) Citation format may be either foot- or endnotes, or in-text parenthetical citations, as you wish. I do not care about style (e.g., MLA, Chicago), as long as there actually is a style that you follow. You do not need to provide me with a bibliography, as I am familiar with all the books you will be citing. Such busy work is for people with an urge to procrastinate or too much time on their hands.
(3) Did I mention? PROOFREAD.
Late paper policy
Please make every effort to turn in your final paper on time. I will accept papers up to two days late, but that is all. Papers turned in on Wednesday, March 19, or Thursday, March 20, will be deducted one full grade step.
Assignment
Making use of at least eight of the major monographs, excerpts from monographs, and articles this quarter (To include: Brown, Langmuir, Heffernan, Geary, Warner, Lifshitz, Kleinberg, Bynum, McNamara, Newman, Douglas, Nelson, Moore, Nederman, Nirenberg, Ginzburg, Bailey, Kieckhefer, and the item(s) you read for class on 2/20, as well as any additional primary sources we have read, address the following issues in an historiographical essay:
What sort of social, intellectual, and/or anthropological models have historians availed themselves of in recent years in discussing sanctity and deviance in the Middle Ages? How have they questioned the existing assumptions or premises in the work of earlier historians, and how have they modified earlier historical interpretations of such categories as medieval “deviance” and “sanctity”? In terms of understanding these descriptive categories, what are the dominant trends, strengths, and weaknesses? What authors’ approaches did you find most convincing, and why? Which did you find least convincing? Note that most of what we have read this quarter has been produced within the last 20 years or so—it is quite recent, in other words, and still heatedly debated. So, who do you think "wins" the day; or, if there is no clear-cut winner, what ideas seem most fruitful for our understanding of history, religion, sanctity and deviancy, and why?
Hints
If you are not quite sure how to proceed, you may want to look at some journals for review essays as examples—most of the major journals devoted to medieval and early modern Europe contain them on a regular basis, as does the American Historical Review. Note that I am less interested in summaries of contents than in a critical evaluation of the authors’ methods, assumptions, and ideas about sanctity and deviance. You may lump authors by similarity of approach (e.g., “feminist” scholarship, functional or structural arguments, etc.) or any other criteria you see fit.