You will write a critical evaluation of either Merry E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe or Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany.
Your evaluation must take into consideration two book reviews published in academic journals found in the SFU library. Avoid popular journals such as History Today. Concentrate on reviews that devote substantial and meaningful attention to the book that you have chosen. You may find a review of the book embedded in a discussion of a series of books on a common theme. The easiest way to find book reviews is through the Humanities and Social Sciences Index database available via the SFU Library Home Page.
A critical evaluation is a response or reaction, based on intelligent judgment, to a piece of writing. It is not a summary of the contents of a book. Essays that limit themselves to a summary of the chosen book will not fulfill the requirement of the assignment and will earn a grade of C or less.
As you prepare your essay, ask yourself questions such as: What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of the book? Does the book have a thesis? What is it and how well does the author prove it? Does the author provide convincing evidence or a compelling analysis of relevant primary and/or secondary sources? Do you think the book makes an important contribution to its subject? Why or why not?
Your essential evaluation of the book should be your argument, the basic point you wish to prove. State your argument in the introduction of your essay and devote your essay to proving the argument through an analysis of the book as well as of the book reviews. One appropriate approach is to consider one central theme in your essay, a theme that will provide your essay with conceptual unity. A "scatter-gun" approach of making several observations that are at best tenuously linked will likely not produce a successful essay. Please note that a critical evaluation is not necessarily a negative evaluation.
Your essay should avoid banalities. Do not comment on minor problems, such as typographical errors, or on standard expectations of published historical monographs, e.g. do not praise the book for its bibliography. Historians are supposed to base their books on thorough research. Only when they neglect this duty ought we to comment.
Furthermore, refrain from caviling at writing style. You may presume that your chosen author writes grammatically correct and thus intelligible sentences. If you do not understand any words he uses, look up their meaning in a dictionary. Do not fault an author for their wide-ranging vocabulary or for their intellectual sophistication. Anti-intellectualism has no place in critical evaluations, which are exercises of the application of reason and intellect.
How to incorporate the book reviews into your essay: Read the reviews carefully. Are they critical evaluations or merely summaries of the book? If they do make judgments, what do they praise and/or criticize about the book. Do they evaluate substantive matters or matters of secondary importance? On what grounds do they praise and/or criticize the book? Do you agree with the evaluations in the reviews? Why or why not?
Second Essay (2000 words)
This essay will chiefly function as an analysis of primary sources to prove a specific argument about female identity in the context of the querelle des femmes. You must use at least four printed primary sources. That means no electronic sources. At least one of these sources must be external to the required readings for the course. All primary sources must be written between 1400 and 1800 and must be relevant to the theme of the course. At least two of the sources must be written by a woman. You may use printed secondary sources to provide historical context or as supports or foils for your argument. You may not use secondary sources as substitutes for your own historical reasoning; your essay should not be an exercise in repeating or summarizing the views of other scholars. The objective of the assignment is for you to formulate and prove your own historical argument based on your own reading of primary sources. Essays that lack a clear argument and/or do not provide a substantial analysis of primary sources will not receive a grade higher than C. They may earn a grade less than C. You must document your essay with footnotes/endnotes and a bibliography in accordance with the most recent edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. Marks will be deducted for deficiencies in footnote/endnote or bibliographical form.
Requirements for Written Assignments
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