As I begin to outline for the upcoming week, I am left with questions regarding context and historiography, particularly how much to include within my paper. Joan's own life story, what historians can know from the records, is vital to understanding the context of the Inquisition Trial. For example, the 100 Years War was ongoing during Joan's life , as the English and French fought one another for territory and royal claim. Joan was loyal to the French but captured by French sympathizers to the English known as Burgundians. Also seemingly important to context is Joan's heavenly visions or revelations - a topic that needs more introduction than its context within the Trial. Likewise, Joan's military successes coincide with her cross-dressing, another large topic within the Trial.
Historiography is also central to my paper. Indeed historians typically include a section of historiography within their work, but I am unsure of how much it should include. Unlike some topics, there are literally centuries of debate and analysis regarding Joan, and although not all of the historiography is pertinent to my particular argument, I am wondering how much is enough. I would love the comment section to be ripe with suggestions regarding how much weight I should give context both of Joan's life as well as the historiography.
I can relate. Although this wasn't senior seminar and the research was therefor a little less stressful, in Atlantic Revolutions my final paper dealt with Rousseau and Robespierre. Albeit probably a little smaller than that of Joan of Arc, the historiography and theoretical work surrounding both those figures was massive. It was, like you said really important to contextualize my own thoughts then within the larger existing notions and schools of thought. My suggestion would be this, since you don't want your historiography to be to large in a 17 page paper, try to narrow the scholars you study into broad schools of thought. Summarize those schools with whoever seems to be their main scholar and fit your argument within the historiography you've done. That would probably help you narrow what could be an 18 page paper of historiography itself into 2-3 pages at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI agree Trevor! There has to be a way to pick scholarly arguments that relate more to your themes, or perhaps choosing secondary research that a little different than "the standard."
ReplyDelete