Summative Assignment: Long essays

Deadlines:

1. 12pm (noon), on Wednesday 19 February 2025
2. 12pm (noon), on Wednesday 7 May 2025

 

Summative assessment for this module in 2021-22 will be by two 4,000-word essays that give you an opportunity to explore the central themes of the module using the readings that you have completed over the course of the year. These assignments build on the formative assignments, but obviously their scope is much broader than those pieces of work - requiring you to think not just about one or two texts but about some of the fundamental issues raised by the writing of history, within and across the four case studies we’ve covered. Note that all essays are expected to have a clear independent thesis - in relation to which you may find it helpful to review the guidance offered by the Harvard College Writing Center here.

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 use the bibliographies on the relevant module webpages and/ or contact the module convenors; 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 itself 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 in good time in order to allow for reflection and planning.

 

General questions

• “History is a true novel.” (Paul Veyne.) Discuss with reference to at least TWO of the units from this module.
• ‘Some historical events cannot be represented in literature; others can only be represented in literature.’ Discuss.
• Fiction offers a more satisfactory account of the past than history can. Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE case studies from this module.
• Historical narratives are always incomplete but not necessarily untrue. Discuss.
• Does the validity of a historical statement depend upon its correspondence to ‘what happened’? Discuss with reference to at least two of the case studies from this module.
• Does memorialisation always produce an historically-inaccurate account of the past?
• Memorialisation is primarily concerned with the present, not with the past. Discuss.
• What is the role of memory in sites and practices of memorialisation?
• Is remembrance or forgetting the primary object of memorialisation?
• Which of the methodologies that we explored in History and Textuality is most useful for understanding how history as a meaningful account of the past is produced? Discuss with reference to at least one of the units from this module.

• The Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai is reputed to have said in the early 1970s that it was ‘too early to tell’ what the historical significance of the French Revolution had been. To which of the case studies from this module would you apply a similar judgement?

 

Unit 1 (Benito Cereno)

• How does ‘Benito Cereno’ condense a global history of slavery into ‘a one-act, nine-hour, full-cast pantomime of the master-slave relation’? (Greg Grandin.)
• ‘In “Benito Cereno” it is impossible to write the history of non-western peoples.’ Discuss.
• How does the fiction of “Benito Cereno” draw attention to histories that Delano’s memoir and the legal archive of the revolt ignore?
• Herman Melville’s ‘Benito Cereno’ mimics the languages of commerce to conceal the violence of slavery and sealing, not reveal it. Discuss.

 

Unit 2 (India in 1857)

• Do eyewitness accounts become more problematic for historians the more distant in time the event?
• Does the history of the Indian uprising of 1857 demonstrate the impossibility of neutrality for the historian?
• ‘Women’s diaries from the siege of Lucknow constitute an archive of mid-Victorian gender ideology, not a record of women’s experience of empire.’ Discuss.
• The deliberate suppression of Indian accounts by British authorities is far from the most important imbalance in the textual record of the uprising of 1857. Discuss.
• Are all accounts of the uprising of 1857 in India works of fiction?
• In the terms defined by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, scholars of the Indian uprising can only study ‘that which is said to have happened’, not ‘what happened’. Discuss.

 

Unit 3 (The Harlem Renaissance)

• ‘Like all historical events, the Harlem Renaissance exists only in retrospect.’ Discuss.
• '"Harlem" does not designate a place so much as a series of processes of transformation.' Discuss.
• Does any single element best serve to define the Harlem Renaissance as a movement?
• How useful is the idea of ‘the Harlem Renaissance’ to historians of artistic activities and networks in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s?
• Which provides more insight into the historical organization of race and its relationship to other identity categories, the passing narrative or the homecoming narrative?
• How has the memorialization of the Harlem Renaissance done more than consolidate a series of artists and artworks under that name?

 

Unit 4 ('9/11' in global history)

• Is it possible to write a truly global history of 9/11?
• Do the events of 11 September 2001 pose challenges to literary or historical representation different to those posed by any other event?
• Does the idea of ‘9/11’ fundamentally inhibit our understanding of what happened on 11 September 2001?
• Did the events of 11 September 2001 post a greater challenge to writers of fiction than to writers of history?
• Compare and contrast the account of ‘9/11’ in any TWO texts of your choice.
• When did ‘9/11’ begin, and when did it—or will it—end?

 

Length: 4000 words (excluding references)

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

Paragraphs: Use standard-length indents for paragraph breaks rather than line 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 top of the page and in document name. E.G. 1771883 – Assessed Assignment 1.docx. Do not include your name.