Writing Assignment In History and Environmental Studies: Animals Making History

Assigned: March 24 (T)

Draft due: April 9 (R) (hardcopy)

Peer comments returned: April 16 (R)

Final due: April 28 (T) (Canvas)

Prompt

In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Karl Marx famously wrote that “Men [people] make their own history, but they do not make it under conditions of their own choosing.” In Mosquito Empires, J.R. McNeill modifies this maxim to incorporate mosquitoes as historical actors. He writes, “Humankind and nature make their own history together, but neither can make it as they please” (2010, p. 6). Your task for this writing project is to use McNeill’s reworking of Marx’s famous maxim—or write your own version—as the basis for a persuasive essay of 1,250 to 1,500 words about the role of animals in making history. Use examples from three class readings to explain what this statement means and why McNeill’s update (or your own) is necessary. You may also want to answer the following questions to help build your argument: How do animals make history? How are animal actors different from human actors? Why is it important to consider animals as historical actors?

Your audience for this essay is skeptical historians who are accustomed to thinking of humans as the quintessential historical actors; your job is to analyze examples from class readings to convince them that animals are also important historical actors. Rather than just retelling stories about particular historical events, you want to make an analytical argument for how and why animals have mattered historically. Be sure you have a clearly stated thesis and that you outline your argument in the introduction. Also be careful not to fall into a determinist argument; you want to pay careful attention to the nuances of how context shapes history.  (For example, arguing that because spermaceti oil makes great candles there had to be a sperm whaling industry would be determinist. It’s too simple a causal relationship and an argument that ignores a slew of contributing factors. Attention to the evolution of whale hunting and the changing context of industrial demand for whale oil would provide context and nuance to counter determinism.)

Be sure to include a title and byline (your name). Use the following convention to name your file: LASTNAME_Final_Paper2.docx

Writing Fellow Meeting: A polished draft of your paper is due at the beginning of class to Canvas on Thursday, April 9. Your Writing Fellow will respond to your draft by Thursday, April 16 and will contact you to set up a meeting. A final, revised version of the paper is due by Thursday, April 23.

Cover Letter: To get credit for the draft (which I will not grade) and the peer meeting, you need to write a 1-page cover letter (single spaced, about 300 words, using professional letter template) explaining how you used (or not) your peer editor’s suggestions and what you have learned through the writing and editing process. Turn this in with your final draft. Use the following convention to name your file: LASTNAME_CoverLetter2.docx

Details: Papers should be 1,250 to 1,500 words (4-5 double-spaced pages; 12pt Times New Roman; 1-inch margins). They should be polished according to Chicago Manual style. Include a properly formatted bibliography, using inline citations when you directly quote a source OR when you paraphrase an idea taken from another source. [I’ll go over the formatting for this in class.]