Primary source research paper, 15-20 pp. In the first half of the semester, students will complete two short essays of approximately five pages that comment on the historiography and theory of nineteenth-century popular culture. Most of the course will be spent producing a research paper of 20-25 pages in length. One substantial research paper. There is in addition an essay to be discussed in tutorial format which is due in the first half of the course.
Students are responsible for leadership of class discussion.
Before spring break, students present three essays in what is a seminar setting. These essays address specific problems in seventeenth-century constitutional history, e.g. the king's claim to suspend a statute upon his own authority, with reference to both the primary sources which document the problem and the secondary sources which have analyzed it. The completed paper is submitted to all the members of the seminar for criticism and discussion. This paper asks students to think of themselves as semi-professional historians who may have something valuable and perhaps even original to say about the English constitution in the seventeenth century. In written form these essays will be about 1500 words long.