History 5230.001
Research Seminar: World War I
Fall 2011, Wednesdaysfrom 2:00-4:50 p.m. in Wooten Hall 230
Dr. Geoffrey Wawro
General Olinto Barsanti Professor of Military History
University of NorthTexas, History Dept.
WH 341
Office phone – 940-891-6940.
Office hours – Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 p.m.
DISABILITY STATEMENT: Any student with special circumstances covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act should register with the Office of Disability Accommodation (ODA), Suite 322, University Union Building, and also inform the instructor of the class. Reasonable adjustments will be made to accommodate the special needs of students with disabilities where such adjustments are necessary to provide equality of educational access.
Students who have registered with the ODA should make an appointment to discuss their disabilities accommodation requests with the instructor. The ADA liaison
for the Department of History is Dr. Clark Pomerleau.
Course Description:
This is a research seminar aimed at developing your skills as a historian. To succeed as a publishing scholar, you need to be an entrepreneur, who can look at the field, find the gaps in our knowledge, and then find the sources that will help you fill those gaps and create new, usable research that can be cited, shared and admired by the historical establishment.
In this seminar we will have several meetings spread over sixteen weeks; the “open” weeks will be for you to perform your research and writing. Attendance at our meetings is critical. Also critical is your observance of email deadlines for important course work like paper outline, annotated bibliography and rough draft. If you are on campus, be sure to deliver a hard copy of the emailed work to my office as well. If I’m not there, slide it under the door.
With luck, you will write a publishable paper on a neglected or controversial aspect of the Great War. You may choose to focus on a thesis topic and write a serviceable chapter. Whatever your preference, your paper should be original and thorough and stake out a clear, well-argued position (thesis) on an important and lingering historical question. You will not be writing a narrative – what happened when – so much as an interpretative essay that explores a complex or misunderstood area of the war and sheds new light on it. Your paper will be more analytical than descriptive.
Our research area is World War I. Topics can range from the origins debate to the post-war settlement. Choose your topic carefully. Read around it; know the relevant literature; determine whether there are gaps to be filled, or nonsense to be corrected. You can focus on strategy, combat, operations, diplomacy, finance, gender, economics, whatever you like. However, you need to ascertain whether there are sufficient primary sources (archives, published documents, journalism, memoirs) as well as secondary sources (monographs, articles and general histories) to support your project, and make it worthwhile and interesting. Locating sources gets to the entrepreneurial nature of the profession: I can assist, but you must do the digging that will yield accessible sources in a tight time window.
Requirements:
Class attendance, 20-30 page (exclusive of front and back matter) research paper, and a successful oral presentation and defense.
Week 1, 8/31/11 Organizational meeting. How well do you know the field and literature? What do you want to work on? General ideas? Specific ideas?
Week 2, 9/7/11 Prospectus due in class. 1-2 pages. Be prepared to discuss and defend your topic. Bring a copy for everyone.
Week 3, 9/14/11
Week 4, 9/21/11 Paper outline by email.
Week 5, 9/28/11
Week 6, 10/5/11 Annotated bibliography by email.
Week 7, 10/12/11
Week 8, 10/19/11
Week 9, 10/26/11
Week 10, 11/2/11
Week 11, 11/9/11 Rough drafts due by email.
Week 12, 11/16/11 Discuss rough drafts: problems, pitfalls, successes.
Week 13, 11/23/11
Week 14, 11/30/11 Final papers due. Defenses.
Week 15, 12/7/11 Remaining defenses.