Hist 213 Paper Assignement - UMD
Primary Document Paper Assignment
Hist 213 History of Sexuality in America
Spring 2008
Dr. Clare Lyons
Due Date: Monday May 5th Paper Due in Class at 10:00
The Paper:
This paper is your opportunity to study one area of the history of sexuality in more depth. Your paper will be a close reading of primary documents put into historical context. You will select one of the four topics listed below, and then analyze that set of documents in comparison to the findings on that topic in the secondary book/articles assigned for that topic.
What do these documents demonstrate (prove ?) about your topic? What can we learn about the history of sexuality and/or power relations from these documents? How does the evidence presented in these documents compare to the history presented in the secondary literature? Do they support or undermine the author’s conclusions? If they conflict or complicate the story, what might account for this difference?
The paper should demonstrate your analysis of the documents, and placing them into the historical context you have discovered through the secondary readings (you may of course, draw on information you’ve gleaned from lecture, textbook, and required essays). Compare your findings to those of the historian in the assigned secondary literature, and speculate about why your findings correspond and/or differ from those of these historians.
Be sure to begin your paper with a thesis statement. Use specific examples as evidence for your points, and avoid unsupported generalizations. You are writing a piece of history.
The Paper should be approximately 8 pages long, typed and double spaced. All quotes and ideas taken from the documents or other readings must be cited using footnotes. Correct form for citations, footnotes, bibliography, and other issues of format can be found in: A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations, by Kate Turabian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Plagiarism (representing the ideas of another as your own) is unacceptable
The four topics are:
Topic # 1: Early Modern Representations of Sexuality:
Documents:
Jane Sharp, A Midwives Book (1671)
Edward Ward, Female Policy Detected (1695, reprinted 1805)
Secondary source for topic # 1:
Thomas Laqueur, “Orgasm, Generation, and the Politcs of Reproductive Biology” Representations, 14, Spring 1986. Article available using JSTOR via McKeldin Library website.
Topic # 2: Late 18th / early 19th century Racialized Sexualities (Philadelphia)
Documents
Early 19th century Slander cases
Early 19th century Almshouse Cases
The Trial of Alice Clifton for the Murder of Her Bastard Child (1787)
Richard Allen, Confession of John Joyce … Address…to People of Color (1808)
Thomas Branagan, Serious Remonstrances … (1805
Secondary Source for topic # 2:
Kirsten Fisher, Suspect Relations: Sex Race, and Resistence in Colonial North Carolina (Cornell, 2002) This book focuses on the relationships between sexuality and construction and regulation of race in the 18th century. Available at the Bookstore.
.
Topic # 3: 19th century Women who Loved Women
Documents:
The Diary of Ann Lister
Lucy Lobell
Margaret Fuller
Secondary Sources for topic # 3 (use both articles):
Susan Lancer, “Befriending the Body: Female Intimacies as Class Acts” Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 32 no. 2 (1998-99) p. 179-198. Available electronic Journal via McKeldin webpage, research port.
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Female World of Love and Ritual” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol 1, no. 1, 1975. Article available using JSTOR via McKeldin Library website.
Topic # 4: Men who Loved Men, late 19th and early 20th century
Documents:
U.S. Navy Court Records
Two Civilian personal narratives
Secondary Source for topic # 4:
George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World (Basic Books, 1994). This book unearths and explains the homoerotic world of late 19th and early 20th century New York city.
Finding your documents
Topic # 1: Early Modern Representations of Sexuality:
To get to the text , Jane Sharp, A Midwives Book (1617) :
Go to McKeldin web page lib.umd.edu , click on research port, type in “early English Books online” in the database entry space, click return, when the database listing comes up click on “early English Books online.” Once you are in this data base, search by author for “Sharp, Jane” – one item will come up, and it will be “The Midwives Book, or The Whole Art of Midwifery discovered …” (London, 1671). Click on “thumbnails” (its an image of a camera inside a piece of paper) and then you can click on “PDF” to get a pdf file of the book.
You will want to read a couple of sections, then decide which section (s) to use that present early modern notions of sexuality.
To get to the text of Edward Ward, “Female Policy Detected” (1695)
Go to McKeldin web page lib.umd.edu , click on research port, type in “early English Books online” in the database entry space, click return, when the database listing comes up click on “early English Books online.” Once you are in this data base, search by author for “Ward, Edward” and title “Female Policy” - one item will come up, it will be “Female Policy Detected, or the Arts of a Designing woman laid open…” (London 1695). You can click on either “full text” or on “thumbnails” to get the text. [note “full text” has the type transcribed so it’s easier to read, and also has links to images of the actual 1695 pages so you can see what those look like.)
Again, here you will need to read a couple of sections, and then select the best ones to work with for your paper.
Topic # 2: Late 18th / early 19th century Racialized Sexualities (Philadelphia)
Narrative in Slander (Philadelphia) - transcribed and available on my web page
history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
Philadelphia Almshouse Daily Occurrence Docket - transcribed and available on my web page history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
To get to the text of The Trial of Alice Clifton
Go to McKeldin web page lib.umd.edu click on research port, type in “early American Imprints” in the database entry space click return, when the database listing comes up click on “early American Imprints.” Once you are in this data base, search by title “Trial of Alice Clifton” - you will find “The Trial of Alice Clifton for the Murder of Her Bastard Child” (Philadelphia 1787). You can click on the item and view the full text.
Thomas Branagan, Serious Remonstrances … (1805) - transcribed and available on my web page history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
Topic # 3: 19th century Women who Loved Women
The Diary of Ann Lister - available on my web page history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
Lucy Lobell - available on my web page
history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
Margaret Fuller - available on my web page
fs history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
Topic # 4: Men who Loved Men, late 19th and early 20th century
US Navy Court Martials - available on my web page
history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
Two Civilian personal narratives - available on my web page
history.umd.edu/Faculty/CLyons click on courses then on the document
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