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Description
This short assignment is designed to help you develop skills in critically analyzing a primary source. The paper will be based on your close reading and analysis of sources from our tutorials. This is not a research essay, and you are not expected to look outside of the course materials for new information. However, you are expected to be familiar with the course readings and lectures. You should choose one of the two questions below (under “Questions”) and write a short (3-5 pages, double-spaced) essay in which you answer it. Your essay should have a a thesis, and should present arguments that spport that thesis; each argument should be supported by textual evidence.
Remember that “critical analysis” is not the same thing as “hate fest.” Even when texts are inaccurate or misleading, we can often learn something from them. Part of this excercise involves thinking about how unreliable texts can still serve as guides to our understanding of the past.
Questions
Answer exactly one (not both!) of the questions below.
The Mesopotamian Epic of Creation (see Tutorial 1) and the Bhagavad gita (see Tutorial 4) are both “religious” texts (bearing in mind that the cateogry “religion” may not always translate well to other cultures), but in this class we are reading them as historians. Can these texts teach us anything about the cultures they come from? Are there any potentia

l pitfalls in using them as historial sources? If so, how would you avoid those problems?
As we discussed in class/ Arrian’s Anabasis of Aleander was weritten several hundred years after Alexander’s death, in a period when competing legends of Alexander circulated widely. In what ways is this text a reliable guide to Alexander? Do you have reasons to be sceptical of any parts of the text? If so, how might you still make use of those parts of the text to learn something (about Arrian, about Alexander, or about the people Alexanre interacts with)?
Technical Requirements
3-5 pages double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, in a 12-point font (preferably Calibri, Arial, or Times New Roman)
All quotations, paraphrases, and other influences should be properly cited. Just this once, you will not be marked down for incorrect or incomplete citation style, but you absolutely must avoid plagiarism and related academic offenses. Please use the Chicago Manual Of Style Notes and Bibliography Style
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(this site from Purdue’s writing centre is also an excellent reference
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). I also strongly recommend using the Zotero reference management tool
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as demoed in class. When citing lectures, an informal citation is sufficient for this audience (“As Prof. Price stated in his lecture on early Sedentism (May 10),…”).
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