Anth G222: Aztecs and Spaniards

Prof. Zeitlin

Fall 2002

Final paper project

DUE DATES:

Nov. 7: Topic paragraph

Nov. 19: Introductory paragraph and annotated bibliography

Dec. 5: First draft

Dec. 2-12: Oral presentations

Dec. 20 (noon): Final draft

The assignment

The final paper is the longest paper you have been asked to write for class this semester, and it should be between 5 and 8 typed, double-spaced pages in length. The topic of the paper is one of your choosing, but it should deal with some aspect of the Spanish conquest and its impact on the Native people of Mexico. For this assignment, I do not want to see merely a description of some event or some institution of Precolumbian or colonial times. Unlike some of the shorter paper assignments that were aimed at getting you to understand and summarize descriptive information, the objective of this paper is a written analysis of some more complex problem.

A good way to make sure your paper is not just a descriptive summary is to frame your topic in terms of a question or problem that can be expressed in a single sentence. Such a question would not include "What was the Spanish conquest (here, a similarly bad topic would substitute another event or institution) like?" Some better examples of questions that would require you to do some real thinking about the topic at hand, rather than just write down information, include"

"Was life better or worse for commoners under colonial rule than under the Aztec state?"

"What was the impact of Western literacy on native historical traditions?"

"To what extent did Catholic missionary activity erode Aztec belief systems?"

These are just a few examples. Many other questions could be raised about material we've been dealing with in the course, depending on what you are interested in. What these examples are meant to show are questions for which there is no simple conclusive answer that can be found by looking it up in the right article or right book. Published writings by experts in the field, however, will provide you with the information from which you can draw your own conclusions or provide the evidence with which you can support your own argument.

Another approach to finding a topic is to look at some controversy that the conquest or its recent study has sparked. A controversy by definition will have more than one side to it, and your paper would discuss the alternative positions taken, as well as evidence that supports or refutes each one, before drawing its own conclusions. Some examples of controversies include:

–The Just War debate between Sepúlveda and Vittoria/Las Casas

– Tzvetan Toldorov's theory that the Aztecs lost because of their inability to read the "signs" of the encounter properly.

–The extent to which Aztec human sacrifice and cannibalism was exaggerated by Spanish	chroniclers predisposed to find cannibals in such strange and foreign lands.

Although "who killed Moctezuma?" is another example of a controversy, we have gone over this ground fully enough in class, so it is not an acceptable paper topic.

Unlike most work you've done for this class so far, the final paper requires you to do additional research. You may use information from the books and articles that have been assigned on the course syllabus, but you must also include at least three additional scholarly resources (i.e. books or articles written by an expert in the field in which his or her argument is supported by authoritative evidence). A good mark of a scholarly reference is that it has footnotes and a bibliography, but run your options by me should you have some doubt. We will do some in-class library work exploring library databases to find appropriate print resources. An annotated bibliography listing these sources and describing briefly how each will contribute to your paper is due along with an introductory paragraph on Nov. 19. I will allow one internet source in addition to the three scholarly print references, but your annotated bibliography must explain why this source is a credible authority on the topic you have chosen.

This is a formal paper and should be structured accordingly. Follow the basic organization:

1) State the problem/question/controversy you are addressing in the beginning of the paper and give a kind of summary "road map" of your approach.

2) In the body of the paper, you should follow the outline you presented in the introduction in a logical and coherent fashion. Support your general statements with examples or evidence drawn from specific sources (properly referenced through footnotes or in-text citations). Each paragraph should be devoted to a single theme or idea, and the paragraphs should follow one another so that your argument builds to a conclusion.

3) In the conclusion you should summarize your argument. If you want to express your personal judgments about the issues or authors or discuss broader implications of these issues, this is the place to do so.

Unlike some of the writing you did earlier in the term, where you adopted the "voice" of a participant in the encounter, in this kind of formal paper you should keep greater distance between yourself and the argument you are presenting. Use "I" infrequently, if at all, and avoid using the first (I, we) or second person (you) pronoun anywhere in the body of the paper. Do not "pretend" to be an Aztec or a Spaniard, though I asked you to do so in some earlier writing, for this assignment asks you to evaluate issues from a modern perspective. Phrase things in terms of the third person (e.g., "M. Smith has argued from his study of Aztec-period archaeological sites that ...") or in the passive voice (e.g., "Aztec-period archaeological sites are thought to have been...").

Of course, you will need to include both a bibliography with full publication information and footnotes or in-text citations for referencing information that is not just common knowledge about a subject. Do not invent your own system, but use one of the standard formats we have discussed in class and be consistent in its use.

The first draft should come as close to meeting all these guidelines as you can make it (remember, you will get a separate grade for each draft). My comments on this draft will vary from mechanical (grammar, punctuation, etc.) to substantive (the clarity of your argument, the logic of its structure, the depth of your analysis, etc.). I expect that you will take these comments to heart in your revision and go beyond fixing typos and other small errors to truly rethinking issues that I point out as problematic or weakly supported.

Oral presentation

During the last two weeks of class, everyone will sign up for a specific date on which he or she will give a brief (5-10 min.) presentation of the research project. It is not enough time to read the paper draft (which would be very boring for everyone), and I would like a more informal, but structured presentation instead. Using note cards, you should instead explain what your paper topic is about, what kinds of sources you found useful, what problems or interesting developments you uncovered in the course of your research, and the major conclusion you have drawn. Think of ways you can get your fellow students engaged in your project so that at the end, when they are asked to make some suggestions, you can develop a real dialogue with other members of the class.