Short Paper: Heian Japan

Answer the following questions:

What do these sources tell us about the culture of the Heian imperial court?

What roles did women play in elite Heian society? Why do you think these roles could have been important? How might the social interactions described in both sources have shaped Japanese politics in the ~ century?

Assignment: The Classical Age

Answer the following question in a short essay, 1 V2 to 2 ‘/2 pages long.

In what ways were the arguments of Herodotus and Wang Chong new?

That is, how do they reflect a different way to understand the world than what we saw in the Epic ofGilgamesh and Hymn to the Nile?

PROJECT

So far, although you've done a lot of writing, it's all been on topics of my choice. This time, you get to choose your topic, research it, and write a paper of approximately four pages. To help narrow it down, I recommend choosing one of the following five choices:

• Pick an important or interesting person or event. Try to figure out why that person (or event) is important.

• Read a work of fiction written sometime before c. 1500. Explain what that work tells us about one aspect of its culture,

• Compare and contrast different examples of art and architecture from either different eras in the same culture or from two different cultures that were around at about the same time.

• Look at how two different cultures interacted and what they wrote about each other (or how they drew/sculpted/painted each other). Explain how these cultures fried to understand each other.

• Write a historical short story that helps explain some aspect of a particular person or culture. (Careful! This is harder than it sounds!)

I want to leave as much freedom as possible in this, so the choice is yours. If you want to try something different, something a little more creative, or have a better idea for a topic feel free to run it by me. Keep in mind we've talked about a LOT of history by this point so there are plenty of options. Again, if you need advice narrowing your topics down, feel free to ask. Also - don't get over ambitious. You're not going to be able to give a complete Marxist analysis of the relationship between law and ritual in the Ottoman royal court between 1300 and 1700, so,please, don't even try. It's better to pick something specific and see where it takes you.

That said, the paper must meet the following requirements:

• It should be four to six pages (not including your works cited page, andlor illustrations),

• It must be typed, double-spaced, and in a font between a 10 and 12 pt.

• It must contain both a works cited page and either Chicago-style footnotes or MLA style citations, citing your sources.

• You must use at least one primary source, that is, at least one source created in the time period you're looking at.

• Your topic has to be something from before c. 1500

• You may not use Wikipedia or any sites based on Wikipedia, such as About.com. I don't want to say you can't use the internet, but be aware that printed books and academic journals are still almost always better than anything online. If you're going to use the web, try to judge whether or not the source is reliable - and if it's not, don't use it.

Lastly, as always, I want to hear what you think. Don't just rewrite what other historians say:

come up with a strong thesis statement and try to prove it as best you can. You've all done well on the weekly assignments - in some cases better than you realize - and I think you can do the same here.