Midterm Paper = 20%
The midterm paper, 1000 words in length, is due in class on Thursday, 14 October. Choose one of the topics below. Follow the Guidelines for Written Assignments on pp. 6-7 of the syllabus before handing in your paper.
Your introductory paragraph should articulate an answer to the question and offer a basic reason for your answer. Devote the rest of your essay to proving your answer (= your thesis statement) through a close and cogent analysis of the book in question.
Midterm Essay Topics
1. Michael Hughes insists that his "is not a collective history of individual German states but an attempt to show that an all-German dimension persisted until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806" (ix). Is this an accurate description of Early Modern Germany, 1477-1806? In other words, does Hughes succeed in writing an all-German history?
2. Looking ahead from the late Middle Ages, Michael Hughes comments: "For some five hundred years Germany was to be a negative quantity in Europe, which had things done to it but which was able to achieve little. It became the anvil when it should have been the hammer" (2). Does Hughes's account of early modern Germany correspond to this assessment?
3. How effective was the territorial state in exercising control (Herrschaft) over rural communities during the course of early modern German history? Did this control become more or less effective between the early sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries? Base your answer on David Sabean's studies of village life in Württemberg in Power in the Blood.
4. "One of the weaknesses of Power in the Blood is Sabean's constant subordination of social relations and religion to political analysis." Do you agree with this assessment?
5. Davin Sabean asserts that "the social relations inside Württemberg villages were constantly undergoing change during the period under consideration" (4). Does his analysis in Power in the Blood bear witness to this claim?
6. Robin Barnes has made the following criticism of Power in the Blood in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17 (1986): 460:
Sabean's approach to the history of popular culture includes an attack on all efforts to discover structures in social relationships. "Culture," he writes, "is a series of arguments among people about the common things of their everyday lives" (95). In other words, culture is simply discourse; as such it is always changing. Sabean rejects the notion that there are economic or mental structures that can help explain the nature of social interaction in particular contexts. People do not share attitudes or perceptions that shape their social relations over time; rather we continually structure our ideas and values to meet new situations.
Do you think this is a fair criticism?
Some specific suggestions on the topics:
Question 1: Consider, among other things, whether Hughes gets caught up in dualism when discussing the history of the Holy Roman Empire.
Question 3: Think of "control" in Sabean's terms. You need to show that you understand what he means by Herrschaft, a key concept of his book.
Question 6: Do not begin your paper by reproducing the entire quote from Barnes. Since culture is the key concept in Barnes's criticism, you should demonstrate familiarity with what Sabean means by culture.
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