Guidelines on 8-page analyses

For your 8-page analysis, you should locate and read a primary (historical) source that sheds light on the “invented traditions” we will be discussing in unit II. Higher-degree (sometimes called “Scottish Rite”) freemasonry, provides a great number of these; so, too, do the many and various attempts to locate the Craft’s origins in biblical, ancient, and/or medieval times (in the Egypt of Hermes Trismegistus, among the Jews at the time of Solomon’s Temple, among the Druids of Celtic Europe, among the Knights Templar at the time of the Crusades, etc.).

To locate a source, you should use the ECCO database, which allows you to search the full texts of virtually everything published in English in the eighteeenth century. You may want to thumb through the regular course readings (particularly Bullock, Brooke, and Roberts) to find a source to look up. Many of the texts available on ECCO are hundreds of pages long. You should use the table of contents and fulltext search features to locate an excerpt about 25 pages to focus on. The ECCO database allows you to print out sections of what you read. You should include with your paper (1) a copy of the source (or at least a 25-page excerpt from it) in addition to (2) the title and contents pages.

In format, your paper should follow the guidelines for historical (primary) sources listed for the short analyses but you should assume, in this case, that I have not read the source in question. You should therefore incorporate into your paper both a close reading of your chosen excerpt and an overview of the larger work from which it is drawn. Substantively, you should draw extensively on the analytical techniques developed in the first two units of the class, e.g. how to read texts for evidence about class and gender and how to account for the genesis and meanings of invented traditions.

You may need to draw on additional secondary (scholarly) sources to guide you in your interpretations; I am happy to provide references. It is perfectly acceptable for two or more students to work on the same text, but I do not encourage collaboration.