Comparative History Term Paper
Budget: $10 – $30 USD
The assignment
The assignment for this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of one of the articles
listed below – there is one corresponding to each course unit – with any two articles
already assigned for that course unit. (For some units there are only two assigned;
where there are three assigned, select two.) These articles are all posted on Canvas in
a module labeled “Comparison essays”; this module appears beneath the one for the
last course unit.
Unit 1: Sturtz, Linda L. "Spanish Moss and Aprons: European Responses to Gender
Ambiguity in the Exploration and Colonization of South-Eastern North America." The
Seventeenth Century 11/1 (Spring 1996): 125-140.
Unit 2: Cremer, Andrea Robertson. “Possession: Indian Bodies, Cultural Control,
And Colonialism in the Pequot War.” Early American Studies 6/2 (Fall 2008): 295-345.
Unit 3: Kashay, Jennifer Fish. "’O That My Mouth Might Be Opened’: Missionaries,
Gender, and Language in Early 19th-Century Hawai'i." Hawaiian Journal of History 36
(2002): 41-58.
Unit 4: Mattox, Jake. "Claiming Panama: Genre and Gender in Antebellum U.S.
Isthmiana." American Studies, vol. 53/1 (2014): 117-147.
Unit 5: McManus, Sheila. "’Their Own Country’: Race, Gender, Landscape, and
Colonization around the 49th Parallel, 1862-1900." Agricultural History 73/2 (Spring
1999): 168-182.
Unit 6: Hoganson, Kristin L. "’As Badly off as the Filipinos’": U.S. Women's Suffragists
and the Imperial Issue at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." Journal of Women's
History 13/2 (Summer 2001): 9-33.
Unit 7: Jones, Jeannette Eileen. "’The Negro's Peculiar Work’: Jim Crow and Black
Discourses on US Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1877–1900." Journal of
American Studies 52/2 (May 2018): 330-357.
Unit 8: Wright, Micah. "‘Protection against the Lust of Men’: Progressivism, Prostitution
and Rape in the Dominican Republic under US Occupation, 1916–24." Gender &
History 28/3 (Nov. 2016): 623-640.
Unit 9: Mitelpunkt, Shaul. "The Tank Driver who Ran with Poodles: US Visions of Israeli
Soldiers and the Cold War Liberal Consensus, 1958–79.” Gender & History 26/3 (Nov.
2014): 620-641.
Unit 10: Selod, Saher. "Gendered racialization: Muslim American men and women’s
encounters with racialized surveillance." Ethnic & Racial Studies 42/4 (Mar. 2019): 552-
569.
Class discussions are intended to familiarize you thoroughly with the assigned articles
and will provide with baselines for comparing the third essay. if your topic of choice
corresponds to a unit that occurs late in the course, it will be incumbent upon you to
discuss your articles with the instructor independently of the class discussions to make
sure you have a solid grasp on them.
Students seeking graduate credit for this course will need to select two books on
any of the course unit topics in consultation with the instructor and conduct a
comparative analysis of those two books.
Mechanical specifications
• The paper must be 2500-3000 words in length (for undergraduate students), or 5000-
6000 words in length (for students seeking graduate credit). It must include an
accurate word count at the end of the paper.
• Citations may take the form of either footnotes or endnotes; these are identical in
format and purpose, except that footnotes are located at the bottom of the
appropriate page while endnotes are located collectively at the end of the paper.
These must conform to the Chicago style. [For a quick guide to Chicago-style
citations, see https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-
guide-1.html.]
• Font must be 12-point.
• All pages except the first must be numbered.
• The paper must be double-spaced.
• An accurate word count must appear at the end of the paper.
Grading criteria
• It must demonstrate solid understanding of the three essays involved.
• It must conduct a systematic comparative analysis of the essays’ arguments and
methods.
• It must be well organized and coherent.
• It must be keep grammatical errors and misspellings to an absolute minimum, and
use appropriate format for citations.
• It must conform to the mechanical specifications listed above. (Failure to adhere to
any of these will result in a loss of 5 points.)
comparative to two of these essays:
Christie - "Women in the Formal and Informal Economies of Late Eighteenth‐Century Quebec, 1763–1830"
Fish Kashay - "'O That My Mouth Might Be Opened'"
Hoganson - "'As badly off as the Filipinos'"
Jacobs - "African-American Women Missionaries and European Imperialism in Southern Africa, 1880–1920"
Jones - "’The Negro's Peculiar Work’"
Mattox - "Claiming Panama"
McManus - "'Their Own Country'"
Mitelpunkt - "The Tank Driver who Ran with Poodles"
Ngozi-Brown - "African-American Soldiers and Filipinos"
Selod - "Gendered Racialization"
Wright - "‘Protection against the Lust of Men’"
The assignment for this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of one of the articles
listed below – there is one corresponding to each course unit – with any two articles
already assigned for that course unit. (For some units there are only two assigned;
where there are three assigned, select two.) These articles are all posted on Canvas in
a module labeled “Comparison essays”; this module appears beneath the one for the
last course unit.
Unit 1: Sturtz, Linda L. "Spanish Moss and Aprons: European Responses to Gender
Ambiguity in the Exploration and Colonization of South-Eastern North America." The
Seventeenth Century 11/1 (Spring 1996): 125-140.
Unit 2: Cremer, Andrea Robertson. “Possession: Indian Bodies, Cultural Control,
And Colonialism in the Pequot War.” Early American Studies 6/2 (Fall 2008): 295-345.
Unit 3: Kashay, Jennifer Fish. "’O That My Mouth Might Be Opened’: Missionaries,
Gender, and Language in Early 19th-Century Hawai'i." Hawaiian Journal of History 36
(2002): 41-58.
Unit 4: Mattox, Jake. "Claiming Panama: Genre and Gender in Antebellum U.S.
Isthmiana." American Studies, vol. 53/1 (2014): 117-147.
Unit 5: McManus, Sheila. "’Their Own Country’: Race, Gender, Landscape, and
Colonization around the 49th Parallel, 1862-1900." Agricultural History 73/2 (Spring
1999): 168-182.
Unit 6: Hoganson, Kristin L. "’As Badly off as the Filipinos’": U.S. Women's Suffragists
and the Imperial Issue at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." Journal of Women's
History 13/2 (Summer 2001): 9-33.
Unit 7: Jones, Jeannette Eileen. "’The Negro's Peculiar Work’: Jim Crow and Black
Discourses on US Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1877–1900." Journal of
American Studies 52/2 (May 2018): 330-357.
Unit 8: Wright, Micah. "‘Protection against the Lust of Men’: Progressivism, Prostitution
and Rape in the Dominican Republic under US Occupation, 1916–24." Gender &
History 28/3 (Nov. 2016): 623-640.
Unit 9: Mitelpunkt, Shaul. "The Tank Driver who Ran with Poodles: US Visions of Israeli
Soldiers and the Cold War Liberal Consensus, 1958–79.” Gender & History 26/3 (Nov.
2014): 620-641.
Unit 10: Selod, Saher. "Gendered racialization: Muslim American men and women’s
encounters with racialized surveillance." Ethnic & Racial Studies 42/4 (Mar. 2019): 552-
569.
Class discussions are intended to familiarize you thoroughly with the assigned articles
and will provide with baselines for comparing the third essay. if your topic of choice
corresponds to a unit that occurs late in the course, it will be incumbent upon you to
discuss your articles with the instructor independently of the class discussions to make
sure you have a solid grasp on them.
Students seeking graduate credit for this course will need to select two books on
any of the course unit topics in consultation with the instructor and conduct a
comparative analysis of those two books.
Mechanical specifications
• The paper must be 2500-3000 words in length (for undergraduate students), or 5000-
6000 words in length (for students seeking graduate credit). It must include an
accurate word count at the end of the paper.
• Citations may take the form of either footnotes or endnotes; these are identical in
format and purpose, except that footnotes are located at the bottom of the
appropriate page while endnotes are located collectively at the end of the paper.
These must conform to the Chicago style. [For a quick guide to Chicago-style
citations, see https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-
guide-1.html.]
• Font must be 12-point.
• All pages except the first must be numbered.
• The paper must be double-spaced.
• An accurate word count must appear at the end of the paper.
Grading criteria
• It must demonstrate solid understanding of the three essays involved.
• It must conduct a systematic comparative analysis of the essays’ arguments and
methods.
• It must be well organized and coherent.
• It must be keep grammatical errors and misspellings to an absolute minimum, and
use appropriate format for citations.
• It must conform to the mechanical specifications listed above. (Failure to adhere to
any of these will result in a loss of 5 points.)
comparative to two of these essays:
Christie - "Women in the Formal and Informal Economies of Late Eighteenth‐Century Quebec, 1763–1830"
Fish Kashay - "'O That My Mouth Might Be Opened'"
Hoganson - "'As badly off as the Filipinos'"
Jacobs - "African-American Women Missionaries and European Imperialism in Southern Africa, 1880–1920"
Jones - "’The Negro's Peculiar Work’"
Mattox - "Claiming Panama"
McManus - "'Their Own Country'"
Mitelpunkt - "The Tank Driver who Ran with Poodles"
Ngozi-Brown - "African-American Soldiers and Filipinos"
Selod - "Gendered Racialization"
Wright - "‘Protection against the Lust of Men’"