Summative Assignment #3: Long essay

Deadline: 12pm on Wednesday 12 March 2025

This 2,500-word essay gives you an opportunity to explore the central themes of the module using the readings that you have completed over the course of the year. This assignment builds on the formative assignments from the first term, and on the two summative responses from the second term; but its scope is broader than those pieces of work, requiring you to think not just about one or two texts but about how some of the fundamental issues raised by English and History as textual disciplines are illuminated by the readings you have completed for the module.

In answering your chosen question, you will need to identify relevant readings from one or more weeks and/ or units. You can select and combine the readings in whatever way you think best addresses the question. There is no obligation to observe the grouping and sequencing of the readings on the syllabus; in fact there may be every reason to disregard them, since new and powerful ideas may be stimulated by thinking across those divisions. In addition to thinking about which weekly/ 'secondary' texts to use, you should also consider which core text/s are most relevant to your chosen question: developing new combinations of core and secondary texts will help to produce new ideas and responses.

This assignment can be completed using only the readings that have been assigned over the course of the module. If you would like suggestions for further reading, please contact us - but there is no expectation that this will be necessary, and further reading will only be rewarded insofar as it produces a more sophisticated answer. In other words, not undertaking further reading will not in any way limit the mark your essay can receive.

 

Questions

You can choose to answer one of the questions below, or to develop your own question in consultation with one of the module convenors. If you would like to take the latter option please speak to us before the Easter vacation to allow ample time for reflection and planning.

• What, if anything, lies outside the scope of historical inquiry?
• Is the distinction between history and literature now essentially redundant?
• Do we understand Mary Shelley's Frankenstein better by situating it in its historical context?
• Is historical writing best thought of as a form of re-mediation?
• 'History is a form of selective memory.' Discuss.
• Have recent developments in historical inquiry brought history and literature closer together, or moved them further apart? Discuss with reference to any selection of the texts from Unit 4 ('Where is History Going?').
• Do the problems of a history of the emotions exemplify wider limitations of historical knowledge?
• What does it mean to 'brush history against the grain'? Discuss with reference to Walter Benjamin's 'On the Concept of History' AND at least one other text from the module.
• Is historical knowledge of the past fundamentally distorted by the operations of power?
• 'If we view ourselves from a great height, it is frightening to realize how little we know about our species, our purpose and our end' (W.G. Sebald). To what extent, and in what ways, can the problem of historical knowledge identified by Sebald's narrator be overcome?

 

Length: 2,500 words (excluding references)

Format: 12-point, double-spaced Times New Roman

Paragraphs: Use standard-length indents (rather than line breaks) for paragraph breaks. Eliminate the extra spacing that Microsoft Word automatically inserts by going to 'Format', then 'Paragraph'. Tick the 'Don't add space between paragraphs' box.

Student ID#: At the top of the page and in document name, e.g. 1771883 - Summative Assignment 1.docx. Do not include your name.