History 102 Spring 2005
The following topics represent papers done by other students in semesters past. These are meant to provide you with ideas and suggestions. We hope you will choose your own topic, one that is uniquely and particularly interesting to you. You may, of course, opt to do one of the topics below.
Your initial proposal should have a title, a 25-50 word abstract, and a list of around 5 sources to be used. See Paper Proposals for more specific instructions. If you need assistance in composition, the University Writing Center is very helpful..
Researching & Developing a Topic
One does not "find" a paper topic, nor "think up" a paper topic. Good topics come from reading about the general subject in which you may be interested. First, read ahead in the textbook and look up the books in the Suggested Reading section at the end of the relevant chapter. Then, consult the resources listed below. Many of these are available electronically, but because paths of access are different for on- and off-campus users urls are given only for some. See the Kuhn Library's Historical Studies Research Guide for access.
Department of History Style Sheet--All proposals and papers must conform to these style rules.
America: History and Life--a complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. The database comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic entries from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.
JSTOR--Electronic archive of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes complete runs of journals with full-text of all articles published prior to the most current five years.
Film Reviews
A film review is not just a plot summary of the film. It should focus on one small but important aspect of the film, be informed by other good, historical reviews, and confront the film with information from books or articles. The Kuhn Library has an excellent Guide to Locating Film Reviews. Good reviews of historical films appear in the Journal of American History, The American Historical Review, and Film and History - a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. Two excellent anthologies containing historians' film reviews are: Peter C. Rollins, editor, Hollywood As Historian: American Film in a Cultural Context (University Press Of Kentucky, 1983) [PN1995.9.H5H64 1983] and Mark C. Carnes, Editor, Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995) [PN1995.9.H5P37 1996]
 | An Historical Outlook on Dances with Wolves |
|
| Wyatt Earp: Life in Tombstone |
|
| Prohibition and The Untouchables |
|
| The Battle of Midway (a comparison of the movie Midway with the documentaries Victory at Sea, Century of Warfare, and Crucial Turning Points of World War II at Sea) |
|
| Newsies: Disney Magic versus Reality |
|
| Schindler’s List |
|
| The Flying Fortress: The Story of Memphis Belle |
|
| Nixon: Fact or Fiction |
|
| Their Very Own League (A League of Their Own) |
|
| Vietnam: A Few Different Perspectives (comparison of Forrest Gump with Billy Joel song "Good Night Saigon") |
|
| All the President’s Men and the Watergate Scandal |
|
| A Movie’s False Historical Impact (Once Upon a Time in the West) |
|
| Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: Fact or Fiction? |
|
| Hamburger Hill |
|
| Full Metal Jacket: Fact or Fiction? |
|
| Irish Immigration to the Western United States (Far and Away) |
|
| Another Nixon Controversy (Nixon) |
|
| The Grapes of Wrath vs. The Ever Normal Granary (comparison of a Hollywood film with a PBS documentary) |
|
| Western Films and Native Americans |
|
| Platoon: A Film by Oliver Stone |
|
| Fat Man and Little Boy |
|
| Platoon |
|
| JFK by Oliver Stone: A Film Review |
|
| Matewan |
|
| Forrest Gump |
|
| Adolph Hitler and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator |
|
| The Warren Commission vs. Oliver Stone’s JFK |
|
| Patton |
Book Reports
A book report is not just a summary of the chosen book. After providing an overview, it should focus on one small but important aspect of the book, be informed by other good, historical reviews, and confront the book being reviewed with information from other books or articles.
| Baseball (Wallace, Joseph. The Baseball Anthology.) |
| From College to University: An American Transformation of Higher Education (Vesey, Laurence R. The Emergence of the American University.) |
| European Diplomacy Lingering in American Society (Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed.) |
| The Great Depression (Romasco, Albert U. The Poverty of Abundance: Hoover, the Nation, the Depression.) |
| The Mafia (Pistone, Joseph D. My Undercover Life in the Mafia.) |
| Coming to Terms with the Bomb (Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb’s Early Light.) |
| Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle |
| John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: An Allegory of Turn-of-the-Century America |
| Working Women in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements.) |
| Willa Cather’s O Pioneers |
| Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger |
Topical Papers
A topical paper examines some subject or issue and discusses the interaction of technology, science, politics, and social factors. After providing an overview of the historical problem or issue, it should focus on one small but important aspect that can be clarified by considering other good, historical analysis from other books or articles.
|
| U.S. superior technology confronts motivated and innovative peasants in the Vietnam War | ||||||||||||
|
| Roswell 1947: Secrets and Disputes Abound around a Small Town | ||||||||||||
|
| World War II: the "wizard war" | ||||||||||||
|
| Getting out of the Great Depression via electrification and production | ||||||||||||
|
| The Influence of Television on American Society | ||||||||||||
|
| From acoustic to electric music in the 1960s|
| Carnegie and Gates: Two Great
Technological Monopolies in America |
| Housework: Industrialization of the Home |
| R.M.S. Titanic: The Symbol of Class Division during the Industrial Period |
| Fighting the U-boat War: Technologies of World War II |
| Nagasaki and Hiroshima |
| The Cuban Missile Crisis | |
Other Options
You may propose almost any topic, using any medium, so long as it is in the spirit of the suggestions above. You may use or review historical exhibits at local museums, television documentary or entertainment programs, computer games, simulations, or "edutainment" software, etc.
