The assignment is to write a synthetic essay in which you reconsider one of the issues we've taken up during this course. Your essay should be approximately 7-9 pages in length, and it should show your ability to read and synthesize material and think historically.

How to choose the materials for this essay.

Go back over the assigned readings for this course looking for books or articles that you might like to reconsider for either of the following reasons:

Once you've chosen some assigned materials to reconsider, add some of the readings now on the suggested readings list to broaden your understanding of the issues.  For this assignment, any of the suggested readings will do, including articles in edited collections and short essays as well as monographs.  What is most important is that the choices you make fit together in a way that will allow you to write about them effectively.

Purpose of the assignment.

In the same way that revising is a critically important part of the writing process, rethinking the literature is a crucial part of the work of a professional historian. As a historian, part of your job is to help move your field in new and interesting directions. Yet as new approaches arise, historical questions that seemed compelling only a few years ago can become tired and uninteresting, while questions you once dismissed can become newly important. This assignment gives you a chance to go back over some readings you encountered earlier this quarter and reconsider your initial reactions to them, letting you practice a skill you'll use again and again as a professional historian.

How to get started on this essay. .

As your familiarity with any topic grows, you should be able to ask and answer more sophisticated questions and to make more compelling connections to your own interests. Over the course of this quarter, you should have learned a good deal about the topic of nationalism and transnationalism, about the ways professional historians evaluate each other's work, and about the historical questions and professional standards that matter most to you. Using the materials you choose for this essay as a jumping-off point, an example, or a case study, make use of the knowledge you've acquired to help put the topic of the course in perspective in a way that makes most sense to you. You're welcome, even encouraged, to use the first person ("I") as your writing voice, but remember that this essay should be at least as much about the historical scholarship itself as about you and your reaction to it.