Do not use other outside sources other than what i provided. The strongest papers will NOT tell the story of your workshop discussion or simply address the “Questions to Ask …” issues sequentially, as if responding to a questionnaire. Rather, I am looking for essays that reorganize the material discussed into a lucid evaluation, presenting analyses and critiques of the texts you read. you will be in a position to think synthetically and comparatively about Sauerländer’s overview and the article you read. These inquiries will be the basis of your paper. I offer the following specifications.
• Your paper should be clearly organized, composed of well-developed paragraphs each beginning with a topic sentence that is analytical in some way or sets up a problem or issue. The opening paragraph should introduce the material and preview your analysis of it. The conclusion should summarize your key points and open up toward new questions or consider the larger implications of the scholarly methods you have analyzed.
• Your introduction should give the authors’ full names, and reference the articles discussed (with citations given in footnotes, see below).
• I underscore: You must use footnote citations.
• The full publication information for a reading should appear in your first footnote
reference to it and be abbreviated thereafter. Citations should be used for direct quotes or where you are paraphrasing the argument made on a particular page or series of pages.
o Proper citation style is: First reference.1 Second reference.2
o In citations, please pay attention to which elements are in quotation marks and
which are in italics.
o I have used the correct style when I introduce the three readings on the first page
of this paper assignment, so follow my model.
o Please remember that it is perfectly fine–standard practice, even–to include more
than one reference in a single footnote. Never put two footnote call-outs next to one another at that end of a sentence.
• Please note that the in standard US editorial style, periods and commas go inside quotation marks; footnote call-outs are after periods, commas, and quotations marks. Like this: “Here is my quote.”3
• The specifics I give about footnote style are not suggestions. They are rules.
• A few tips:
o Please try to avoid (or limit) your use of the word “context.” It is overused in academic writing and often is thrown in where more precise terminology would be better. When you find yourself inclined to use this word, stop and think about what you’re really trying to say and see if you can find more concrete words.
o If you want to use the word “iconography,” be sure you understand that it has two meanings in art historical writing. It can be a fancy way to say “subject matter” (“The iconography of this scene is the Annunciation”). Or it can refer to a scholarly method, in which elements in a depiction are decoded for their symbolic meaning, usually with evidence drawn from texts; sometimes scholars think that “iconology” is a better term for this analytical approach.
Questions to Ask While Reading Scholarship on Medieval Art
This guide can help you when you when reading scholarship for this class (or any other). When you are in your workshop groups, you should explicitly address each of the seven numbered sets of questions for all of the readings assigned to you.
1. Who Wrote the Text?
A. Where did the author earn a Ph.D. and what was the field of specialization?
B. Is this the author’s first publication or one appearing within a long career? Are the
author’s other publications on similar topics or is this an anomaly?
2. Where and When was the Text Published?
A. Is the article in a scholarly journal? A contribution to a collection of essays on a focused
theme? A chapter of a book?
B. Find out something about the journal, essay collection, or book. What is its mission and
target audience?
3. What are the Reading’s Topics and Goals?
A. Be able to make a clear statement about the material addressed – its chronological and
geographical scope.
B. Beyond the material considered, are there larger implications for the analysis? That is,
could insights from this inquiry be applied to the analysis of other material – historical, art historical, or otherwise?
4. Scholarly Method – Formal Analysis
A. To what degree are the formal characteristics of the material considered?
B. Do the author’s descriiptions of elements in the monument simplify or complicate your
understanding of them?
5. Scholarly Method – Iconography
A. To what degree does the scholar consider subject matter?
B. How does the author analyze the meaning of the figural or structural themes depicted?
Theological sources? Church ritual? Social and economic conditions? Artistic practice?
6. Scholarly Method – What Constitutes Evidence?
A. Does the author introduce primary source evidence? Is the material drawn from the
world of intellectual life (the writings of theologians, for instance), from ritual (such as the
liturgy), daily experience (legal cases, for instance), current events (reported in letters)?
B. To what degree does the author review, rely on, or refute earlier scholarly assessments of
the same or related material?
C. Does the author introduce evidence from outside the discourse of art history, cultural
studies, or the humanities entirely?
7. Scholarly Method – Production or Reception
A. Is the author interested in the conditions under which the monument was made or the
conditions under which it was used? Or both?
B. How does the author seek to get at these questions given our limited evidence about the
experience of audiences long ago?
