Choose one of the following source documents
Primary Source Analysis
Due via Blackboard by 11:59 pm on December 1
Please choose one primary source discussed in this class, and in three (3) pages (roughly 800-1000 words, double-spaced, 10 or 12 pt font) set it in historical context, analyze its content, and describe what it has to tell historians about the society in which it was produced. The purpose of this exercise is to develop your close reading skills, learn to imagine how people in societies very different from our own thought about the world, and see connections between specific evidence and broader historical interpretations.
- Choose one of the following source documents:
Book of Isaiah (Second/Deutero-Isaiah)
Book of Documents(Shujing)
Rig Veda
Upanishads
Bhagavad Gita
Rock Edicts of Ashoka
Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian
Matthew, Gospel
Paul, Epistle to the Romans
Vishnu Purana
Early Buddhist Pali texts (“Wheel of the Law”; “Poison Arrow”)
Lotus Sutra
Epic of Gilgamesh
- Gather basic background informationon the source. When and where was the source produced? Is there a single author who can be identified, and if so, who was it? What language was the source written in? Is there anything interesting about how historians came to know about the source? Some of these documents – as posted on the course Blackboard site – come with introductionsfrom which you can answer some of these questions. Read those introductions, but go beyond them and find further information online about your source. The information that you gather should be confirmed by at least two or three different sources/websites.If you use websites as opposed to scholarship that happens to be available online, try to choose the most responsible and academic websitesyou can find: sites associated with universities or academic presses – or maintained by people with academic credentials – are better for our purposes than websites aiming to win religious converts or serve a popular audience. Make sure you cite all the sources from which you draw information. (Note: Like you, I’m aware of something called Wikipedia, and while I won’t prohibit you from using it, you’ll need to show more initiative than simply copying out what some anonymous Wikipedia writer happened to come up with. Pro tip: Most Wikipedia articles on topics relevant to this class are simply lifted from the Encyclopedia Britannica.) In citing your sources in footnotes, use either the Chicago or Turabian style guides (link).
- Carefully review the section of the source assigned for this class. What kind of text is it? What is the social or political perspective of the author or authors? What is the document aiming to accomplish? Is it trying to persuade people of something, and if so, what? What can we infer from the document about the society in which it was produced? How does this source reflect the larger pattern of social, political, and religious developments in the society that produced it? If what we saw in our class was only a short extract from source, try to determine if that section is representative of the larger text.Make sure you can answer these questions before you begin to draft your essay!
- Draft your essay. I suggest beginning with the background information that you found, and then setting the source in context. The big question: Why is the source important? What does it have to teach historians about the society that produced it?
