Prompt: Compare and contrast your chosen concept (i.e., Ethics, Gender, Self+Other) in the Heian and Tokugawa periods. Be sure to:
- Define at least one way that they are similar and one way that they are different (of course, you can find more, too);
- Use evidence from course materials to show why your analysis of the similarities and differences is plausible. In other words, how do you know what you say you know?
The primary skill of historical writing we are practicing in this paper is making plausible interpretations of evidence, i.e., interpreting evidence in its historical and textual context.
Required materials: Selections from the Pillow Book; A Stranger in the Shoguns City; other course readings.
To receive full credit, please:
- Write the paper in complete sentences.
- Identify your chosen concept.
- Respond to both parts of the prompt (identify at least one similarity and one difference, and then also show how you know what you know).
- Cite at least six pieces of evidence total from reading materials and lecture to make your case (with at least one piece each from Pillow Book and A Stranger in the Shoguns City). (You may use evidence from other sources as well.)
- Make plausible interpretations of the evidence that you cite.
Citation style: Parenthetical citations at the end of the sentence with author last name and page number or reading title and page number. For example, “(Stanley, p. 23), (Sei, p. 74), or (The Pillow Book, pp. 64-66).
Format: Three pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman or similar, 12-point font.