History Extension question and topic selection (1 Viewer)

[tilly5455]

Okay so firstly, I'm stressed.
Secondly, I have a slight outline about what area of history/historiography I want to look at but I'm really struggling to find information just generally.

I want to look at areas like the Black Plague, the idea of Camelot, mainly early English history. However, I am not opposed to any other suggestions or idea. Vikings are interesting but im not sure if there is historiography surrounding that area.

Really I need help settling on an area and finding a question.

Thanks.

 

[Frostguard]

Hey Tilly! Don’t worry I’m stressed, I haven’t even finished researching and I’ve only written an incomplete introduction LOL, it’s ok to feel stressed but we still have, what, 9 months left??? That’s tons of time to get it done and dusted!!!

As for your second question, you need to decide on a specific part of early English history, whether it be the Royals, or the Black Plague/Vikings/Camelot like you suggested, since there’s all sorts of events and controversies within early English history, make sure to pick a topic you genuinely have interest in, even better if there is surrounding historiography with multiple perspectives. I’ll just try and make sure a question on the topic of Vikings because you found it intersecting, how about maybe like ‘ To what extent have interpretations of the importance and impact of Vikings on English history modified over time? For this area you would talk about several historians one in the beginning of early English history, one a couple hundred years later and maybe one a few years aho/now. I’m not exactly sure what aspect of Vikings you find interesting so I’m just taking a stab at the dark here (I think that’s the phrase I don’t know LOL)
But yeah if you had any further questions and it would help if you could elaborate on why you find Vikings interesting, you can easily devise a question that makes sense and something you can search for information on. Good Luck!! We’ll suffer together!!

 

[tilly5455]

hey there could you help me to formulate a question that involves the Plague/Black death?
I have found a lot of books regarding this topic compared to some of the others.
Honestly forming the question is the hardest part for me because i can't think of the way to write it, but once i have that im sure we will be good to go. My proposal is due first day back which is why im so stressed URGH!
But anyway, if you could help with a question on the Plague that would help ALOT!!!

 

[Frostguard]

ok so a historiography question about the plague... something to do with changing interpretations maybe? how about a question about on the effects? there's a proposal in the history extension resources section on the black death, you could use it help you i guess (don't cheat though lol)
I'm not really sure what part of the black death you find interesting, could be the effects, cause, importance of the event or how it has influenced history, can you elaborate a lil bit?

 

[tilly5455]

I was thinking about how the black death has influenced modern medicine or something about the spread of the disease in comparison to other outbreaks over the years. IDK just something along the lines of that you know...

 

[Frostguard]

Ok, that sounds a lot easier to formulate now, how about:
'To what extent has the Black Death influenced the modernisation of medicine/medical developments in technology and treatment?' It may sound very history-like but as long as you make historiography the basis of your project and not history, you'll be right.
To make it historiography like, like I am, I will discuss multiple historians and you must always link back to how much the Plague has influenced modern medicine. You could have 3 to 4 historians, one at the initial outbreak, another one a couple hundred years later, another one also a couple hundred years later and one recently, eg the 21st century. This should be a good way to showcase historiography and changing influences and yeah lol.

 

[tilly5455]

When you say historians from the outbreak, do you like trying to find a historian from the time of the plague.
How do you make it more historiography like? My teacher kinda rambles about everything and has never actually said like what historiography entails specifically.

 

[Frostguard]

Yeah that’s basically what I mean, find a historian and in this case a type of medical historian or someone like that who wrote about the Black Death and how limited the medicine was in treating the patients. You can make your project more historiographical by showing context, History is simply writing about the past, historiography is about the present view of the past, (I just learnt that today in an English lecture imao) in which you talk about context and the things that influence a historian to write eg gender, occupation, social status, age, etc. We study historiography to basically understand why historians wrote and why they wrote that particular way. For my project, which you could do for yours too since we both focus on changing interpretations and modifications over time, I’m doing French Revolution specifically Marie Antoinette’s role in the F R where I will discuss 4 historians and what their interpretations are of marie’s Role in the F R. Just know they historiography is the study of the writing of history , not history itself where you consider CONTEXT (I swear this lecturer repeated this word 10 times looool) and also types of readings, eg feminist, marxist, and yeah lol