Aysha, Week 9, Paper Revisions

The criticism I received on my (incomplete) first draft was extremely, extremely helpful – I’m hoping for most all of it to be incorporated in some way. The biggest piece of advice (which I think I received from everyone, especially Professor Kollmann) is to be a little bit more modest in the conclusions I try to draw from the limited amount of information I have on Catalina de Erauso and the little I know about how her book was written and with what precedent and aims in mind. I plan to be more open-ended and merely suggestive about possible interpretations of what her book reveals about her, her life, and her time. I also think it would be a better idea to take Professor Kollmann’s advice on splitting the paper into two or three sections, starting with background historical research on the time and circumstances that are highlighted in the memoir and then discussing the memoir in particular and what it might suggest about Catalina and the world in which she lived. Suzanne suggested reading literature on the carnival at that time, and I am leaning on drawing heavily on that to set the historical stage into which Catalina enters, though I may also include a heavy historical chunk talking about either other memoirs at the time or more general societal conditions (possibly splitting this historical section in two pieces). Basically: I plan to make the paper seem more historical, as it should be! And the other piece of advice that will definitely also be used: further entertaining quotes from Catalina herself! I'm planning to do serious work on this over the weekend (probably like a lot of us), and I'm hoping these ideas will both get solidified and teased out by Monday.

Also, I did find the process of reading and preparing a short presentation on Alice’s paper to be helpful, particularly because it forced me to engage with another student’s work, and seeing how much historical background she included in her paper helped me to see how my paper needed more of it!

Alice - Week 9 - Paper Revisions

I'm currently in the process of figuring out exactly how I do want to structure my paper - I got a few plans suggested from my readers and from Nancy and Suzanne, which were all really helpful. And talking about Aysha's paper structure definitely helped too - I say that I had also come up with good analytical points but was lacking a good structure or introduction. To help with it, I printed out my paper and marked out where the following sections were now - political background, typical French ideological treatment of the Ottoman Empire, and the religious background leading into how Chardin is different - and created a new word doc where I color coded them so I could easily move them around. I think the way I want to go is the way Suzanne suggested: After the expanded intro which now includes Chardin's bio and journey/publication timeline, I'll go into the French ideological imagination of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, and some examples of how Chardin is neither anti-French nor anti-oriental, though either prefacing or ending with some hints that he won't completely fit in with this. Then, the six pages that I have on political background, though I've been crossing out all the unnecessary parts that I can and hopefully it will now be four pages (three's too ambitious... I like that part). That sections ends with a paragraph explaining how Chardin was typical of his time, which is the same paragraph I ended the political section with initially (including the last line "But this isn't the whole story..."); it will be a little lengthened to bring in the ideological points on which Chardin agreed with his contemporaries (Europe as superior because of scientific advancements, the Orient as unchanging). The next three big steps before final edits are: 1) adding in the rest of my analysis of Chardin, then stepping back and maybe reordering all the little parts of that section to make them more coherent (especially since some of them were points of similarity, which will be moved to the beginning of the paper with the traditional French view); and 2) Working on my transitions throughout since I'm chopping it all up and reordering it, and 3) Getting a really good introduction, which mainly will be figuring out how much of my main point I want to betray up front. At this point I think I'm going to stick to a bare bones "But because he was a Huguenot, he didn't fully fall in with the traditional Catholic French treatment of the Orient, and therefore he was able to take a much more objective stance on the culture of the Ottomans and Persians" - and not really a big roadmap. My aim for before the weekend is to have all of the restructuring and analytical additions finished, and then before Wednesday to get in the transitions and good introduction, so I have two days to really make sure the argument is coming through and is well prefaced with the introduction, and to write a good conclusion for the whole piece.

Cameron Ormsby--Week Nine--Revision Comments

I thought that the feedback I got on my rough draft was very helpful. I think the general consensus was that I should work on strengthening my argument, especially introducing my thesis on page one instead of page thirteen. That’s definitely something I plan on doing, and I’ll work to expand my conclusion and make it feel less abrupt. I think if I push my argument further, perhaps reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of an absolute monarchy versus a popular democracy, and speak a little bit about the ironies of the popularization of inoculation in America, I can create a more interesting finish to my paper. In the substantive category, I want to add a paragraph about how American elites embraced the inoculation much as Catherine the Great did. I think this will emphasize that top down support has little impact in a decentralized democracy like 18^th Century America. I also want to do more research into the long-term effects of the public health reforms in Catherine the Great’s Russia. I do think that there will be evidence to argue that these reforms were not as far reaching as those in the United States, and that will help complicate my argument for the benefits and drawbacks of Catherine’s reforms. Other small details I want to fix: making the context paragraphs for Russia a little more interesting, explaining French-Russian relations for the Enlightenment angle (especially the ‘French critique’ that I referenced and never explained), and making sure that my argument is worked into the evidentiary paragraphs. Thank you all so much for your feedback; it’s been tremendously helpful!

Helen Higuera - Week 9 - Revision Comments

I think I’ve received a lot of useful comments so far, and it’s definitely given me a lot to think about for revision. Writing in general is a pretty painstaking process for me, especially revision, so it’s slow going, but I’ll try to give an overview of my plan. Suzanne suggested that instead of starting out with so much background on British policing, I should start out with stereotypical views of Russia in travel writing. That way I could focus in on what is unique about McCoy’s account and then focus in on themes of her discussion of the police. I’m taking this tactic now. I’m still going to start out with background on McCoy initially, but after the first couple paragraphs I’ll go into some of the tropes in more detail rather than just rattling them off without explanation because I realized that really just confuses the focus of the paper in the beginning rather than giving helpful information. This will also allow me to incorporate the image of the wolf more, as Suzanne suggested, which I had initially planned to do but couldn’t find a way to fit in my first draft (a sign of a problem looking back on it). I think this plan will also help me weave McCoy into the paper better, which has come up in comments before, but I wasn’t really able to resolve at all in my draft.

Nancy suggested that I make my background discussion clearer and also clarify the structure of each stage in the development of policing so that the reader can see the relevance more clearly. I think that all the background information I gave definitely got confusing and vague at times, so I’m working on honing it down and keeping it to direct parallels to McCoy’s account as we discussed in class (It’s hard for me to cut out some of the not directly related stuff because I think it’s so interesting).

I think it was useful to present another paper in class. Although, I am one of those people that thinks that it always informs your own writing to edit the writing of others. It’s also just useful to see how others tackled organizing all of their research given that we’ve been discussing this in class. I don’t know how useful any comments I gave were in themselves, but I think we got a good discussion going on the papers that was helpful.

Mackenzie: 5 Pages Comments

Jimmy: 5 Pages Comments

Cameron: 5 Pages Comments

Billy: 5 Pages Comments

Helen: 5 Pages Comments

Amir: 5 Pages Comments

Vincent: 5 Pages Comments

Aysha: 5 Pages Comments

Alice: 5 Pages Comments

Amir - Outline

Sorry this is late.

I. Introduction

A. Introduce topic (New World ritual and religion in early Spanish accounts)

1. Conquistadors’ accounts of human sacrifice in Mexico

a. Maybe include a scene from Díaz

2. Introduce Cortés and Díaz (biographies)

a. Briefly go over time period they came out of (reconquest, New World possibilities)

B. Thesis / Research question

1. I don’t have a clear thesis thus far. After talking with Professor Kollmann, I realized that instead of focusing exclusively on human sacrifice I should broaden my analysis to include more of the interactions that Spaniards had with the indigenous religions of the New World. With this, I’m hoping to show that the accounts of the Spanish arrival in Mexico cannot be viewed solely as an outward gaze but as a reflection on Spaniards’ own society. The originality of my argument rests on a very close reading of the text.

II. Main Body

A. Diabolical interpretation of the Aztecs

1. Offer many examples in Díaz and Cortés where idols are destroyed.

2. Tie in with Spanish experience with non-Christian religions. I’ll definitely be using Stanly Payne’s book on Spanish Catholicism a lot in this section and throughout my whole paper.

a. Moors

i. Not as violent as Aztecs but a mortal enemy, nonetheless

ii. Ironically, one of the Muslim charges against Christians had been that they were polytheistic, a misunderstanding of the Trinity.

iii. Díaz makes a very interesting remark about St James, who was a patron of soldiers and known in Spanish as matamoros (the Moorkiller)

I. This could be a fruitful comparison.

b. Jews

i. Portrayed with violent imagery similar to Aztecs.

ii. The beginning of the Spanish inquisition

B. Potential for reformation of Indians

1. Cortés and Díaz mention the possibility of redemption.

a. Whenever they arrive at a temple they present an image of the Virgin Mary and a crucifix and assure the natives that things will be better for them if they convert.

b. Cortés also begs the king of Spain to send more missionaries and good Christians, since the people of Mexico have much misplaced fervor that could easily be directed towards Catholicism.

2. Again, bring in the Spanish inquisition

a. Persecution of conversos (Jewish converts to Christianity)

i. Concern with asserting Spanish dominance

ii. Still, can’t underestimate the important of Christian principles of evangelization.

iii. Possibility of creating a new Spanish society out of the ruins of the old.

I. Despite convivencia of Islamic Spain, people were uneasy about pluralism.

II. Eventual expulsion of Jews and Muslims

III. Possibility of reformation exists even more strongly in America than in Europe.

A. New society can be created without vices of Europeans.

3. Hispanic culture has clearly emerged from the Islamic confrontation

a. Principle of attachment is seen negatively in Cortés’s and Díaz’s writings (bad traits, common barbarism)

i. Pagden

C. Opposing argument

1. David Carrasco

a. Argued that Spanish descriptions of Aztec rituals could have been part of greater scheme of defamation.

i. I will counter by mentioning how human sacrifice could have been repulsive to many other groups (other Indians around area).

2. Leads to reasserting how unique these descriptions actually are

III. Conclusion

I’m working on getting more secondary sources especially on Spanish religion. Important topics include the expulsion of Jews and Moors, and the early Inquisition.

Mackenzie Tudor-Outline

Mackenzie Tudor

H206S 5/1/11

I. INTRODUCTION

A. John Dunton’s Religious accounts exemplify the fear and concern the English had over a lack of religious and political authority in New England. This was exacerbated by a backlash against fanaticism that occurred in the late 17^th century. John Dunton’s account serves as an allegory of what society would be like if the people diverted from the religious authority of the Church of England and moreover the Anglican faith.

II. FEAR OF LAWLESSNESS

A. Memories from the English Civil War and the Commonwealth drive the English people to fear a society not strictly under the English laws or religion.

1) The civil war period is often blamed on the independents and separatists who lived in large numbers in England during this time. Before the restoration many of these groups fled to the New World.

2) I will pull in Bulchez and Key’s book on Modern England to get most of the text for this paragraph. It will make clear why the English people are so scared of the lack of traditional religious and political structures in New England.

B. The lack of traditional political and religious structures led to a New England society that was harder to regulate.

1) The laws of New England at this time differ from Colony to Colony depending on the settlements religious affiliation. The laws of the Church of England are rarely followed both because the people of the settlement don’t follow that religion, and because there are no Clergy members and few priests to led followers of the Church of England in New England.

2) Pull in John Dunton’s detailed descriptions of the Church government in New England. As well as Lippy’s book on American Religion which highlights difference between English and New England religion at this time.

C. This fear was enough to make King James II completely restructure the New England colonial government in 1686.

III. FEAR OF FANATICISIM

A. Towards the end of the 17^th century, England was moving toward a period of early Enlightenment. They were moving away from the religious radicalism that had been prevalent at the beginning of the century and towards what they believed to be a more rational form of religion.

B. As John Dunton examines the religion of New England it appears to incorporate the type of radicalism the English are trying to avoid. The continued belief in supernatural occurrences like witches and their rejection of traditional forms of religious authority exemplified the types of religious occurrences the English no longer wanted to be a part of.

IV. JOHN DUNTON BIAS

A. Many of John Dunton’s descriptions of New Englanders are similar to descriptions written about puritans in the early 17^th century. This pulls into question if he is simply reasserting previous beliefs or asserting actual ones.

B. His plagiarized work aids to allegorical nature of his account by exaggerating the negative aspects of New England society. However his positive religious personal relations with some individuals seem to attempt to display that there was some hope for the society.

C. John Dunton’s strong Anglican faith leads his observances of the New Englander’s to be skewed, based on the fact that few New Englanders were observing what he would consider the true Anglican faith at this time.

V. IS THE ACCOUNT TRUE?

A. Take information gained from research from New England religion, to conclude if we can judge John Dunton's account and determine if its account of religion can be viewed as true. Is it an accurate representation to New England or does its plagiarism and goals thereof change that?

Helen - Outline - Week 6

After talking with Suzanne I decided to go back to the police angle and see what I came up with if I just decided to focus on the development of regular police in England and what I have about the police in Russia.

Thesis: Rebecca McCoy measures the security of Russian society against a modern concept of a police force, and her account reveals both British anxieties about the police and the belief, developing at the time, that the police are a civilizing force in society – somewhere in between “the government” and “the people.”

I. Regular Police

a. In McCoy’s Account

i. Should be preventative, lacking in Russia - “kind of out-of-door servant, called a Dwornick, who may be considered as the real police of the country, for it is he that guards the establishment from thieves, &c” (63)

ii. Uses Russian word – emphasizes difference - “butitchnick or stationary policeman” (67)

iii. Criminality - “wolves instead of the watch-dogs of the community”(67) – relates two (similar) stories about “butitchnicki” murdering women and hiding their bodies under their floorboards

iv. Inefficiency - “This is one of the senseless regulations of the Russian police, that everything must be done by their agency; surely it ought to be lawful to save a fellow-creature’s life” (70) – tells sordid stories to illustrate people dying because of this “regulation” and also to illustrate other “senseless regulations”

v. servility/slavishness in the police –“As for the police, they have been spoken of elsewhere, but I cannot avoid mentioning…the chief master of the provincial police…seems to be a kind of head lacquey, who is expected to run about as an errand-boy…he stood with the humility of a servant before his master” (180)

1. general importance of servility and slavishness

vi. Corrupt - gives a melodramatic description of wronged factory workers; “They pretended ignorance of the whole affair…undoubtedly they knew well whither the money had gone” (179)

vii. Somewhat biased claim that police serve to whip up enthusiasm in wartime - “show that enthusiastic cheers and delighted shouts can be made to order, and according to the regulations of the police, by which everything in fact is conducted in Russia” (214)

b. In Contemporary Britain

i. Move from a broader definition of the word “police” to our modern use of the word

ii. Individual liberties v security of property and person “zealots for personal liberty” and the fact that a new police system would cost taxpayers combined to delay the development of modern police (42 A History of Police in England and Wales 900-1966)

iii. Local v centralized authority

iv. Calquhon, Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis (1797, 8 later editions)

1. Connection between police and “Morals” of the people

2. “In vain do we boast of those liberties…of the security which our Laws afford us” – without police to secure them

v. Peel - 1829 establishment of modern police force in London

vi. Police in Scotland (Policing and Prosecution in Britain in Britain 1750 – 1850)

1. “played a crucial ideological role by the apparent fact of their dissociation from overt class domination and its cruder coercive manifestations”; “the population viewed their local police forces as little more than lackeys of the landlords.” (268)

2. private, more general, police of the burghs v more modern police forces of the rural landlords

II. Political Police

a. In McCoy’s Account (mentioned A LOT but does not use the word police)

b. Spies also play a role in creating patriotic enthusiasm in wartime - “There were also a great many spies doing duty among the crowd, who were placed there in order to hear” (215)

c. On spies – “eighty thousand paid agents” in the country among whom are many “Poles and foreigners” but she has not heard of any Englishman “being so employed” – insincere conversation a result (83)

d. talks about women also being spies (83)

e. Noblewomen being beaten by the secret police for “sympathy with Western powers” (86) – she has “no doubt” of these stories being true

f. Third Section established by Nicholas I, censorship, fear of secret societies

III. Situating her account in Civilized v Uncivilized Rhetoric about Eastern Europe (Larry Wolffe, Inventing Eastern Europe)

a. Despotism and slavery rhetoric

i. “I am confident that most of the defects which appear in their national character are in consequence of the despotism of the Russian government” (Richardson qtd 85) – McCoy echoes this sentiment throughout her account; interrelated with the power of the state and policing of the people

b. Role of beasts (specifically wolves) in “imagining Eastern Europe” (101-103)

i. McCoy’s characterization of the police as wolves (67) and her disproportionate attention to wolves elsewhere (163, 164, 166, 167), including her own encounter with a wolf

c. Significance of her gender and class

i. Her wolf imagery significantly differs from that used by male predecessors

ii. More concerned with the security of her person (ties into O’Loughlin’s theme of women travelers and the body)

iii. Individual liberty more dependent on security provided by a police force

iv. Anxieties about the police less abstract (they literally murder women)

v. Police not a force simply to control lower classes; should actually help the lower classes against oppression and general hardships

vi. Her account is not simply a nationalist diatribe against Russia, and she attempts to prove her objectivity and give a balanced depiction

d. Race and antiquity

i. Eastern Europe during the Enlightenment was “on the academic frontier between ancient history and modern anthropology” (331)

ii. McCoy often compares Russians and ethnic groups in Russia to ancient races and civilizations, though she uses more positive characterizations than barbarian races evoked by her predecessors (e.g. compares the people to paintings on Etruscan vases and Athenian temples (169), one of many examples)

IV. Conclusion - speculate on the significance of police in the relationship between state and people, and what this means for the civilized v uncivilized debate? not sure yet.

Aysha Bagchi - Week 6 - Outline

Alice-Chardin Paper Outline-Week 6

I. Intro, importance

A. Main gist of paper: Chardin’s work is important because his view of the Ottoman Empire is not of a Catholic Frenchman, loyal to and financially backed by the Catholic monarch. Rather, he is religiously persecuted in his own country as a Huguenot, so his writings don’t carry the fiercely anti-Islamic slant that the writings of a Catholic observer of the same time would.

II. Small context, biography

A. Use Emerson’s article for much of this (entry in the Encyclopedia Iranica), as well as tidbits pulled from other sources that reference him. Also use R.W. Ferrier’s A Journey to Persia (overview and summary of Chardin’s views on many topics, with introductory bio).

B. First journey conducted with his father, in whose footsteps he followed as a jeweler and traveler. Second journey much longer, includes living in Ispahan for six months; it was on this journey that Chardin set out to collect as much information about the Persian culture as possible, with the intention of amassing it in a body of work, though the work wasn’t written until several years later.

C. Contemporaries:

i. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier – also a Huguenot, whose large body of travel writing was immensely popular in France (following his sixth journey) at the time that Chardin was returning from his first journey.

ii. (Others)

III. Relations between France and the Ottoman Empire

A. Main sources here: Thierry Hentsch’s Imagining the Middle East,

B. Political, Economic relations - Ina Baghdiantz McCabe’s Orientalism in early modern France : Eurasian trade, exoticism, and the Ancien Regime is a great secondary source that will supply most of the information and references to other sources for this

C. The beginnings of orientalism

i. Came into full force in the eighteenth century, but began as a phenomenon in the seventeenth century; Chardin and his fellow travelers, traders, and collectors were a part of it

ii. References from McCabe and Edward Said’s Orientalism

D. Cultural changes effected in each by the encounter between France and the Ottoman Empire (brief mention of Muzaffar Alam’s Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries and Fatma Gocek’s East encounters West)

IV. Religion

A. Catholic France and the position of Huguenots: The Edict of Nantes, which protected Protestants like Calvinists and Huguenots in France, was established earlier in the seventeenth century, and repealed in 1685. Upon Chardin’s return from his travels, he found that the atmosphere in France had moved from one of begrudging toleration of Huguenots (albeit exclusion from some spheres of society) to one of persecution and exile, and he left for England.

B. Multi-cultural, multi-religious Ottoman Empire

i. Reference number of converts to each – voluntary European converts to Islam and immigrants to the Orient, but no Easterners converting to Catholicism.

ii. Turks and Persians much more willing to accept converts; their

C. Huguenot presence in England

i. Anti-French sentiment

ii. Chardin exiled to London, where he wrote Voyages

D. Chardin’s travels come right before Huguenots are persecuted in France (repeal of the Edict of Nantes), and his writings are necessarily a product of that break with the Catholic country that exiled him

V. Conclusion

A. Chardin’s account was used by many French philosophers and critics of the regime who used the Ottoman Empire as a mirror with which to critique the French monarchy but never traveled there themselves (notably, Montesquieu). It’s very interesting and telling that his account would be so seminal among critics of the Catholic monarchy.

/*Rather than devote a section to "analysis," quotes from Chardin will be scattered throughout the paper to support the picture of Franco-Ottoman political, economic, and religious relations, and especially in the 'religion' section to show Chardin's view of Islam*/