Final Project: The Post-Dictatorship
(6-8 page paper or equivalent project, due December 19 no later than 11:00 AM)
Your final project will investigate some aspect of the post-dictatorial period in any of the Southern Cone countries we have been studying. Among many of the themes you can explore are:
Transitional justice
History and memory
Bringing torturers to trial
Truth and reconciliation processes
“Universal jurisdiction” and the “Pinochet case”
Reconstruction of civil society in post-dictatorial societies
The political economy of post-authoritarian regimes
Memorialization
“Nunca más”
These are only a few examples; there are many others. If you have any questions about whether your topic is a valid one, please ask.
Guidelines: Your 6-8 page paper needs to answer questions you have about a subject; these are questions that you will attempt to answer in the course of your research and writing. You must state in the first paragraph what it is that you will be arguing in the paper (i.e., your thesis). The easiest way to make sure you are doing this is to include following sentence is in your first paragraph: In this paper I will argue that… What you will be doing in the paper, then, is providing the evidence to support your thesis.
Alternative project: You may choose to do a project rather than a paper. If you choose a non-traditional format (e.g., a photographic essay, a musical composition, a collage, etc.), you must accompany your project with a written essay (3-5 pages) in which you develop the analytic thinking behind the project. For example, if you wanted to compose music for piano and singer, the written work to accompany your (recorded) project would contain an analysis of your lyrics as well why you adopted specific approaches in the compositional development of the piece (use of specific key changes, etc.) to express certain ideas. In other words, your project can take many forms, but at the end of the day, I need to know what informed your thinking, and that must be in writing.
That said, here’s a word of warning on projects that use alternative forms of media: It is best not to chose a medium you haven’t worked with previously as you will spend all your time learning how to use the medium and not enough time thinking about the basic analysis that should be at the heart of your project. You may want to do a short documentary film, but if you have no experience with shooting or editing, you will spend most of your time learning that.
The medium for your project should closely align with the nature of the project itself: using a visual medium for visual projects, etc.
A warning on projects: a few of the projects I received for the second assignment were over-the-moon good. This means that the bar is now very high. It is precisely because some of the projects were so good that I’m allowing them as an alternative to a paper, but be forewarned that I know what you are capable of and my expectations are very high for this kind of project.
All papers and projects will be single authored this time around. I need to be able to evaluate your individual work for this final assignment.
Sources: I expect that you will expand on the sources of your information somewhat from only those materials assigned in the course. I will expect you to carry out research in 3-4 additional sources (e.g. books, articles, or scholarly materials on the internet).
Citing your Sources: All projects, whether a standard written paper or in a different format, should include citations in the text to the material you are drawing from. You don’t have to cite commonly known facts (e.g. Pinochet left the presidency in March 1990), and your paper should not be a string of quotes, so make the work your own and cite evidence and analysis which are drawn from other scholars. In a non-standard project, where citations in the “text” make no sense, please provide a short annotated bibliography in which you describe those works consulted that had most of an impact on your project.
Use the historian’s standard format for footnotes, the Chicago Manual of Style. You can find a summary page I have put together on how to cite materials in footnotes linked under "Citation From" at the top of this syllabus (http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/citation.htm.) If you are writing an annotated bibliography, use the following:
https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocChicago_Bibliography.html .
Footnotes (supra-numbers) go at the end of the sentence (and after any punctuation- like this). Do not use parenthetical citation format (Volk 2014); always provide page numbers for evidence drawn from a specific page; don’t use the citation format which appears in scientific papers (which allows multiple numbers following a sentence to account for multiple sources). If you have multiple sources, use one footnote and put the multiple sources in the same note at the bottom of the page (or end of the paper). Footnote numbers proceed sequentially – they don’t get repeated if they refer to the same source. Follow the guidelines and ask if something is not clear. This time I will see if you’re paying attention.
Projects that use standard footnotes (or endnotes) do not need to include a bibliography.
Format: Papers are to be 6-8 pages, double spaced, 12-pt font, one-inch margins and turned via Blackboard in a pdf format, just as you’ve turned in your previous two assignments. If you have a project that can’t be uploaded to Blackboard, contact me.
Honor Code: You must sign an honor code on your work.
The assignment is due no later than 11:00 AM on December 19 (as attested to by the time stamp on Blackboard). You may request an incomplete in the course (a form which I will have to sign), but no extensions without an incomplete. ASSIGNMENTS THAT COME IN LATER THAN 11:00 AM ON THE 19TH WILL NOT BE READ. Plan accordingly: no exceptions.
(6-8 page paper or equivalent project, due December 19 no later than 11:00 AM)
Your final project will investigate some aspect of the post-dictatorial period in any of the Southern Cone countries we have been studying. Among many of the themes you can explore are:
Transitional justice
History and memory
Bringing torturers to trial
Truth and reconciliation processes
“Universal jurisdiction” and the “Pinochet case”
Reconstruction of civil society in post-dictatorial societies
The political economy of post-authoritarian regimes
Memorialization
“Nunca más”
These are only a few examples; there are many others. If you have any questions about whether your topic is a valid one, please ask.
Guidelines: Your 6-8 page paper needs to answer questions you have about a subject; these are questions that you will attempt to answer in the course of your research and writing. You must state in the first paragraph what it is that you will be arguing in the paper (i.e., your thesis). The easiest way to make sure you are doing this is to include following sentence is in your first paragraph: In this paper I will argue that… What you will be doing in the paper, then, is providing the evidence to support your thesis.
Alternative project: You may choose to do a project rather than a paper. If you choose a non-traditional format (e.g., a photographic essay, a musical composition, a collage, etc.), you must accompany your project with a written essay (3-5 pages) in which you develop the analytic thinking behind the project. For example, if you wanted to compose music for piano and singer, the written work to accompany your (recorded) project would contain an analysis of your lyrics as well why you adopted specific approaches in the compositional development of the piece (use of specific key changes, etc.) to express certain ideas. In other words, your project can take many forms, but at the end of the day, I need to know what informed your thinking, and that must be in writing.
That said, here’s a word of warning on projects that use alternative forms of media: It is best not to chose a medium you haven’t worked with previously as you will spend all your time learning how to use the medium and not enough time thinking about the basic analysis that should be at the heart of your project. You may want to do a short documentary film, but if you have no experience with shooting or editing, you will spend most of your time learning that.
The medium for your project should closely align with the nature of the project itself: using a visual medium for visual projects, etc.
A warning on projects: a few of the projects I received for the second assignment were over-the-moon good. This means that the bar is now very high. It is precisely because some of the projects were so good that I’m allowing them as an alternative to a paper, but be forewarned that I know what you are capable of and my expectations are very high for this kind of project.
All papers and projects will be single authored this time around. I need to be able to evaluate your individual work for this final assignment.
Sources: I expect that you will expand on the sources of your information somewhat from only those materials assigned in the course. I will expect you to carry out research in 3-4 additional sources (e.g. books, articles, or scholarly materials on the internet).
Citing your Sources: All projects, whether a standard written paper or in a different format, should include citations in the text to the material you are drawing from. You don’t have to cite commonly known facts (e.g. Pinochet left the presidency in March 1990), and your paper should not be a string of quotes, so make the work your own and cite evidence and analysis which are drawn from other scholars. In a non-standard project, where citations in the “text” make no sense, please provide a short annotated bibliography in which you describe those works consulted that had most of an impact on your project.
Use the historian’s standard format for footnotes, the Chicago Manual of Style. You can find a summary page I have put together on how to cite materials in footnotes linked under "Citation From" at the top of this syllabus (http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/svolk/citation.htm.) If you are writing an annotated bibliography, use the following:
https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/DocChicago_Bibliography.html .
Footnotes (supra-numbers) go at the end of the sentence (and after any punctuation- like this). Do not use parenthetical citation format (Volk 2014); always provide page numbers for evidence drawn from a specific page; don’t use the citation format which appears in scientific papers (which allows multiple numbers following a sentence to account for multiple sources). If you have multiple sources, use one footnote and put the multiple sources in the same note at the bottom of the page (or end of the paper). Footnote numbers proceed sequentially – they don’t get repeated if they refer to the same source. Follow the guidelines and ask if something is not clear. This time I will see if you’re paying attention.
Projects that use standard footnotes (or endnotes) do not need to include a bibliography.
Format: Papers are to be 6-8 pages, double spaced, 12-pt font, one-inch margins and turned via Blackboard in a pdf format, just as you’ve turned in your previous two assignments. If you have a project that can’t be uploaded to Blackboard, contact me.
Honor Code: You must sign an honor code on your work.
The assignment is due no later than 11:00 AM on December 19 (as attested to by the time stamp on Blackboard). You may request an incomplete in the course (a form which I will have to sign), but no extensions without an incomplete. ASSIGNMENTS THAT COME IN LATER THAN 11:00 AM ON THE 19TH WILL NOT BE READ. Plan accordingly: no exceptions.