Due
Friday, November 1, 2002
Once you have decided on a general topic for your research paper, it is important to become familiar right away with the range of resources available on that topic. Your research paper will only be as good as the amount of time and thought and research you put into it. It is not acceptable to decide at the last moment that somehow “there aren’t enough sources on it.” This is something you should know early on in the research process, not at the last minute.
To write a truly effective paper, it is imperative that you cast your net wide. If you are writing about “Rajput portraiture” for example, the chances are very high that there will not be a single book on that topic; nor will you find something easily with web resources. But (as you know from your course pack) there are articles from edited books and journals that address that very issue. Moreover, if you read those articles you will see that they lead you to interesting ideas about representation; the magical powers of the ruler; the Rajput attitude toward the body; the differences from Mughal portraiture, etc. Thus, in thinking about your topic, you need to think around the issue you are researching—you need to brainstorm about all possible angles that might make your paper a true research paper and not just a hastily assembled report.
To that end, I am asking you to hand in a fully developed paper topic proposal by no later than Friday, Nov.1 (and earlier, if you can). This proposal should have:
Ø
a good working title
Ø a one- to two-paragraph summary of the proposed topic, with a working thesis statement
Rajput portraits differ from Mughal portraits because the Rajput attitude toward the body and the role of the ruler is fundamentally different. This paper aims to explore the ways in which Rajput rulers commissioned portraits that, while emulating Mughal prototypes, focused more on the symbolic form of the ruler than on his actual physical attributes
Ø a list of questions—in outline or list form—that you actually intend to try to answer (as opposed to making them up as sheer speculation). This means that you’ve read enough and amassed enough information that you know where you are headed with your paper
-when
did Rajput rulers begin commissioning portraits?
-why
weren’t portraits an important category of painting prior to Muslim
influence?
-what
are the general characteristics of Rajput imperial portraits and what do they
tell us about the ruler and attitudes about the ruler?
-in
what ways are they similar to, or different from, Mughal portraits?
Ø a working, annotated bibliography (with complete citations) that demonstrates you have searched broadly in books, scholarly journals, scholarly databases and search engines, and the internet (beware of some of these sources!)
This should be typed, carefully proofread, and handed in by Friday at 5 p.m. E-mail submissions are acceptable, but be aware that sometimes you lose your formatting when you send something electronically.