 |
An Introduction to the
Liberal Arts |
 |
|
|
An Introduction to the
Liberal Arts |
|
|
        
|
Intellectual curiosity is the trademark of the liberal arts student, and a salient trait of the interesting conversationalist—as well as a characteristic, often, of an exemplary life (such as with Ker Conway. Asking important and interesting questions is often more important than knowing or being able to find the right answers. The value of the life of the mind is one ideal that we begin to inculcate in Introduction to the Liberal Arts, and hopefully, it continues to strengthen throughout your time at Monmouth and throughout your life. As we read about the Cuban missile crisis in Thirteen Days and about the life of Ker Conway or Shakespeare, hopefully we all had many questions about various contexts for the events narrated in the books. While I think the books are well-written and interesting, I do not know everything about these texts or topics. For the research assignment, each of you will choose a topic and a related research question for a brief five source annotated bibliography. This may be a factual type question regarding a context or person connected to one of these books: One might focus on the missile crisis (“what were the various causes of the Cold War? Who was Khrushchev? What were nuclear weapons like in 1962 compared to now?) or more exploratory and analytical questions (what kinds of leadership strategies are implemented by different presidents? How do others’ recollections of the Cuban missile crisis compare to Robert Kennedy’s? Could anyone have survived a nuclear holocaust like the one that might have happened had the Crisis been handled differently—if so, what would the world have been like? What was Robert Kennedy’s relationship with his brother JFK like in the 60s?). Alternatively, one might explore issues related to the biography of Shakespeare: why are scholars so fascinating by the idea that Shakespeare may not have written the works attributed to him? What was an early modern grammar school education like? What about Virginia Woolf's story of "Shakespeare's sister"? Why does Shakespeare appeal to non-scholars--including prison inmates? The key is to find some approach or angle that piques your interest and to research it using scholarly sources in order to expand your knowledge of Thirteen Days or of the life and/or impact of Ker Conway or Shakespeare. Ideally, this is the life of an engaged liberal arts scholar. An annotated bibliography looks at the best sources on the topic, provides a bibliographic citation, a careful and thorough summary, and a brief evaluation of the source for each entry. Your annotated bibliography will include five scholarly sources, of which only two can be scholarly electronic sources (from Google, etc) or reference materials; you will need to provide both a hard copy and an electronic copy for me in addition to paper copies of the sources that you used. The objectives for this assignment:
Sample student annotated bibliography
|
 |
||
|
|
|