79-198: Research Training — History
Voting Rights in the United States
Section A: Lisa Tetrault
Did you know that American citizens have no right to vote? None. The United States is one of the only constitutional democracies in the world that does not enshrine this right in its founding charter. Not only did the nation’s founders punt on creating one, social movements have also never succeeded in creating one. Yet we hear all the time about how different groups won the vote: Black men in 1870; women in 1920; everyone else in 1965. Again, nope. So what, then, have voting rights activists won over the centuries? And how and why has an affirmative right to vote never been achieved? This book project looks to answer those questions, starting with the U.S. Constitution and working forward to the present.
I’ll happily train all students on the skills needed. Work will be largely in digital sources. Class requires your commitment to work independently, as a lot is work you have to find time do on your own to get in your weekly hours. In truth, that’s the hardest part of the class, the self-discipline. If you have that, or want to practice it, come join me in sorting out this history.
Open to up to two students.
Interested students should send an email to Professor Tetrault and include information about your interests in this project.
The Art and Science of Making Medieval Manuscripts
Professor: Alexandra Garnhart-Bushakra
Making medieval manuscripts involves a type of alchemy, which bridges techniques associated today with fine artistry and scientific experimentation. Even the word manuscript emphasizes our ability to create through a physical act, where manus (“hand”) and scriptus (“written”) must come together to commit one’s ideas to the page and, eventually, posterity. Indeed, a manuscript served multiple purposes: Its text not only revealed hidden truths to its intended readers, but its illustrations, miniatures, marginalia and also lettering represented a set of skills that scribes passed down from one to another over many generations. In the pre-modern era (i.e., before the 1500s C.E.), books emerged as objects of prestige, and both their display and circulation became priorities to those fortunate enough to possess them.
In this course, students will have the opportunity to study — and ultimately, make — their own manuscripts, all while learning more about medieval attitudes towards natural history, reading cultures across the Mediterranean world, and “bestsellers” that long predated the printing press. This project will introduce students to the hands-on process of creating a manuscript from beginning to end: Students will be expected to review primary and secondary sources; to prepare materials such as historical inks, pigments, dyes, waxes and foils; to practice calligraphy and illumination design; and to learn about the history of scripts through a brief primer of paleography. Participants can also assist in the development of teaching materials for the course. Knowledge of the Greek alphabet, Latin abbreviations and/or French may be helpful, but such expertise is not necessary to success in this class.
Open to one or two students.
Interested students should send an email to Dr. Garnhart-Bushakra to discuss the possibility of participation and their goals within this project.
"Ireland" In the Global Imagination
Professor: Aidan Beatty
There is a central paradox at the heart of Irish history; even by the usual standards of small European countries, the Republic of Ireland is a small place of five million people while Northern Ireland has a population just under two million. Economically, neither of the two Irelands has ever seemed to be major sources of wealth. The Republic of Ireland is a neutral country that, since its founding in 1922, has never been at war with another country. Neither the Republic nor Northern Ireland could claim to be global powers. By any conventional global measure, Ireland is not an important country. And yet, ideas of “Ireland” clearly do matter. Upwards of thirty million Americans claim Irish ancestry; St. Patrick’s Day’s status as a major celebration of Irishness is unquestioned (it would be hard to imagine a similar excitement for a day-long celebration of any other small European national identity); caricatured conceptions of Irish pubs, Irish radicalism, Irish literature, and Irish music have an outsized global reach.
My project aims to understand how romanticized, exaggerated and even outright false ideas of Irishness have been actively propagated around the world. Specifically, I am interested in how left-wing writers and activists all around the world use constructed ideas about “Ireland” to understand political problems like capitalism, colonialism, political violence and migration. This would again involve me helping a student gain research skills and then finding original articles in Socialist, Anarchist, Communist and Radical Nationalist publications. Some of these publications will be available digitally, some will have to be tracked down in print via Interlibrary Loan. I would especially like help with finding and translating Asian, Middle Eastern or East European material but this research could be in any non-English language and I would be happy to have students focus on a region or country of their choice. Knowledge of Irish history or of left-wing history would be a plus, but not at all required.
Open to two students.
Interested students must have a strong reading ability in a non-English language (ideally, Arabic, Farsi, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin or any South Asian or East European language.) Please send an email to Dr. Beatty and include information about your interests in this project.
