ESSAY TOPICS
Due date: no later than Tuesday, March 14 (you may turn it in earlier!)
The task:
Your assignment is to write an 8-10 page analytical essay. You have two options:
• either to compare the treatment of an issue that has been addressed by
two of the thinkers whom we are reading in the course, or
•
to analyze the writings (nine or ten short excerpts) gathered in one of the chapters
we are reading from The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (either “Revolution
from the Right” or “Designing the New World: Architecture and the
Bauhaus”).
In either case, you are only required to draw on texts that have been assigned
as course reading. If you wish to consult additional sources, whether primary
or secondary, you may do so, but it is not required. Should you do so, you
must—as
always—credit your sources with proper footnotes.
What is an analytical essay?
An analytical essay differs from a research paper. The point of the assignment
is to read not extensively but intensively. Your goal is to provide a close analysis
of the argument in the texts.
These topics are meant to suggest some of the larger issues we are considering
this term. But in order to handle any of these questions in an essay of this
length, you will have to define your focus carefully. For instance, if you are
comparing two writers, you will need to narrow the topic to one that can be handled
in an essay of this length; you cannot meaningfully compare everything you have
read by them.
Whichever option you choose, a good analytical essay will do three things:
1. once you have defined the issue, you should then
2. state the positions involved as clearly as possible; and finally,
3. you should illuminate them critically. There are various ways to do this,
depending on the particular case. In the case of two authors, you may want
to draw out
and compare their underlying assumptions and values (for instance, assumptions
about the self, about rationality, about the nature of the changes taking place
in their society); by examining their internal logic and consistency; by examining
their language and rhetoric; by comparing the situations in which they were
written; and so on. In the case of the Weimar Republic Sourcebook selections,
you will also want
to consider whether or not there are tensions or contradictions among the various
authors.
Some suggested topics for comparing two authors:
Nietzsche and Freud on the relationship between “lower” forces and “high” culture
Simmel and Weber on the construction of the self
Freud and Weber on the modern culture of work
Benjamin and Horkheimer/Adorno on the media and the culture industry