Edited Collection
The culminating project for the semester will be an edited collection that addresses an inquiry question of your crafting that deals with some thematic element from the course. The collection will consist of the following elements:
An Inquiry Question: This is the main frame for your work in the project. Decide what issues you want to explore in greater detail. Ask a question that will allow you to assemble a collection of sources and write a narrative introduction. Our reading for the semester addresses issues of “in-betweenness” for citizens, groups, and cultures in the United States between Reconstruction and World War II. In the course of thinking about in-betweenness, we are faced with questions of power, authority, citizenship, fitness for self-government, racial formation, gender relations, origin stories and teleology. Your question should allow you to engage some of these issues while working with particular sources.
An Introductory Essay: This narrative essay (2000-2500 words) will answer your inquiry question and draw on the sources in your collection. The format for the essay should be that of a traditional academic essay in which you employ accepted conventions of usage and style, you quote from and do close readings of your sources, and draw significant larger conclusions from your work.
8-10 Primary Sources with Annotations: These sources should be selected from a variety of forms (letters, documents, news accounts, advertisements, photos, paintings, songs, etc.). Your sources should reflect a care effort to represent multiple points of view. Each source should be presented with a title, an 100-200 word annotation, the source itself, and the Chicago Manual of Style formatted bibliographic citation. The annotations (3-4 sentences) should situate the source in a general context, in the context of your project/inquiry question, and should point out the most interesting element of the source.
An Annotated Bibliography: This bibliography should include the 6-8 most important secondary sources related to your topic. Again, you should use the Chicago Manual of Style format for your citations. Each annotation should provide a summary of the source’s argument and a statement of its relationship to your project.