Choose one of the
primary sources we have read in this class. As a reminder, these are:
Ibn Battuta, “Ibn Battuta in Mali”
Daniel Defoe, from Robinson Crusoe
Jonathan D. Spence, from The Death of Woman Wang
Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, The
Communist Manifesto
Chinua Achebe, from Things Fall Apart
Primo Levi, “On the Bottom”
Isabel Allende, from My Invented Country
Mohsin Hamid, “Discontent and its
Civilizations”
Write an essay of 3-4 full pages,
double-spaced with 10 or 12 point type and 1 inch margins, answering the
following questions. Do not answer these as a series of questions, but as a
complete essay. Please do not use a cover page. Please cite sources in a
footnote or endnote or in the text. Do not use a “Works Cited” page. Every
word you submit must be written by you personally, not by machine or by another
person.
1.
About how long did it take you to read
this source? Did you consider it difficult or not difficult to understand? If
it was difficult, what do you think was the main obstacle? How did you try to
overcome this obstacle?
2.
How can you relate this text to the one which
comes either before or after it in the sequence above? What common themes do
you see between the two? What historical events happened between the historical
period that the first source is set in and the historical period that the second
source is set in (you must know these and say when they are set!) that would
explain the differences between them? The time a text is written and the period
they portray can be different. Things Fall Apart was published in 1958,
but it portrays the late 19th century.
For example, you might write: “Both
Ibn Battuta’s travels in Mali and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe are
stories of world exploration. Written in the fourteenth century, Ibn Battuta embodies
a religious outlook when he describes the culture and people of Mali and
admires how they teach their children to memorize the Koran. Written in the
secular eighteenth century, following the Scientific Revolution, Daniel Defoe
creates a character who initially dismisses religious faith and the tradition
of following in his father’s footsteps. His travel, unlike Ibn Battuta’s, is
motivated by a desire to gain financial wealth, and he finds his opportunities
in slave trading in Brazil, since the trans-Atlantic slave trade began in the
sixteenth century.”
3. Finally,
tell me what you understood or knew after reading this text that you did not
understand or know before you read it. Do you consider what you gained worth
the time you put into it? (“No” is an acceptable answer here.) If not, what do
you wish you would have done with your time instead of reading this text?
