Humanities Homework Help

Hi, so these are questions that must be answered in depth. ONLY get the information from the uploaded pdfs and no where else. Each set of 5 questions says which pdfs to look at. Thank you in advance :)You can use quotes from the book to support your statements. Paraphrase them (that is summarize them) or quote the text in full. Do be precise and include simple footnotes whenever you cite the pdfs.

Answer ALL of the following using Ginzburg, The Cheese & the Worms pages viii-28; 91-108

1. Why and how did Menocchio end up at the stake? Who and what circumstances got him there? Consider both trials and Menocchio’s life in Montreale.

2. Ginzburg is quite critical of previous attempts to analyze “popular culture” and define its relationship to elite culture. (xiv-xviii) What does he condemn in the analyses of Mandrou & Bolleme? What does he hate about the“the history of mentalities” (xxiii) and the ‘history of collective psychology?” How do previous approaches fall short for Ginzburg?

3. In the Preface, Ginzburg longs for a study of peasants which is “very direct and …free from intermediaries.” (xviii). Has he produced such a study? Do we hear Menocchio without distortion or interference speaking to us from across the centuries? Who are the intermediaries who distort or shape Menocchio’s speech and how do these do so?

4. We need to see if Ginzburg & his fellow micro historians live up to their claims for microhistory. Is the Cheese & the Worms “interesting?” Does it focus on the “normal exception?” Does it sufficiently contextualize Menocchio by investigating his family, community & so forth? Does it adequatelyand convincingly connect the micro to the macro?

5. The Cheese & the Worms has been the subject of a play but never a film. Why do you think this is the case? Were you to produce a play or a film based on the book, who would you choose to play the lead, that is Menocchio?

Answer ALL of the following using Finlay,” Refashioning Martin Guerre”, Davis, “On the Lame,”, Jean de Coras, The Memorable Story, and Davis, Return of Martin Guerre selected pages.

1. Finlay in his critique of The Return of Martin Guerre, Finlay claims that Davis imagined the following element in her interpretation:

1) The cooperation between Bertrande de Rols and the fake Martin Guerre, Arnaud du Tilh

2) Bertrande as a headstrong, independent woman

3) Arnaud du Tilh’s Protestantism

4) Coras’ “identification” with Arnaud du Tilh.

Do you agree or disagree? Please provide precise page references to The Return of Martin Guerre and contrast Davis’ assertions with her primary text, Coras’, The Miraculous Story.

2. How did the imposter get away with it? Who believed he was the real Martin Guerre? Who did not?

3. Is the Return of Martin Guerre, a microhistory? Davis never uses the expression in the book but everybody including Bell think that the book is an example of the microhistorical approach Consider Davis’ methods and the subject of her research. You might consider the ways in which The Return of Martin Guerre draws upon or even imitates features in The Cheese & the Worms?

4. In the article by David Bell that we read last week, Bell criticizes microhistorians for being too “cinematic” and too eager to reach a large audience often at the expense of professional standards. He also complains that micro historians are “frustratingly incapable of integrating micro analysis with larger historical generalization that formour understanding of the paest.” Do you think that The Return of Martin Guerre suffers from the weaknesses Bell complains of?

Answer ALL of the following using Arnold The HIstorian as Inquisitor, Ginzburg The Inquisitor as Anthropologis, and Selected Records of the Bishop of Pamiers Inquisition Final Edit (1).

1. Sherwood says that the Inquisition records were “finding devices” designed to catch heretics (Sherwood, 64).How so?

2. Ginzburg and Arnold agree that the Inquisition records constitute, to cite Ginzburg, “texts of repression.” But they have different views of how or even if the Inquisition records should be used. Please outline the similarities and differences between Ginzburg & Arnold.

3. Scholars seem to agree that the Inquisition records are “deeply distorted.” How are they distorted and by whom? What can’t we learn from these records? Be specific and refer to the primary source records you are reading, as well as the articles.

4.Here is an exercise in “reading against the grain,” that is reading a text not for the information it seeks to impart, but for the details of everyday life that get included in the text and are a kind of byproduct of the author’s work.What do the Inquisitorial records tell us about material life, leisure, sex, or domestic life in Montaillou? It was not the Bishop’s intention to chronicle everyday life but we still learn about everyday life. Give one or two examples.

Answer ALL of the following using Le Roy Ladurie Montaillou selected pages, Boyle Montaillou Revisited, Confessions of Beatrice de Planissoles part 1, Confessions of Beatrice de Planissoles part 2, Confession of Barthelemy Amilhac

1. Montaillou has been both incredibly popular and immensely influential. Historians to tend to cite it liberally assuming without a second thought that it is a “typical” medieval village.Was it? Or was it closer to a “normal exception?”

2. Montaillou, LRL tells us, hadlittle hierarchy, especiallyby comparison to feudal, northern France. Does that mean that Montaillou was untouched by inequality or by oppression? Who was dominant in Montaillou and how did they acquire & maintain their dominance?

3. Thanks to Stork’s translation, we can compare LRL’s analysis of the Inquisition records with the Inquisition records themselves. Please compare Montaillou Chapter IX “The Libido of the Clergues”with “The Testimony of Beatrice de Planissoles Parts 1 & 2.”Does LRL sometimes err in his interpretations? Does he ocassionally embroider (like Davis) on the truth? Would you interpret Beatrice’s story differently from LRL?

4. Boyle complains that LRL has ignored his source, the Inquisition. Natalie Davis has charged LRL with imposingcontemporary categories on the Montaillou peasants. Are these charges justified? Be sure to cite specific passages in Montaillou.

Answer ALL of the following using Rudolf Dekker, Ulrich Laurel Thacher The Midwives Tale, Laurel Thacher Ulrich A Midwifes Tale, and Le Pore Historians who Love Too Much Biography Microhistory.

1. Before the 1970s, the word “ego document” did not exist. And yet we now know that the “ego document” appeared and multiplied in the years between 1500 and 1800 thanks to Rudolf Dekker’s research on Dutch ego documents. Why does the ego document appear in the early modern period? Who writes these texts and for what reason? Finally does Martha Ballard’s diary fit the definition of an ego document included in Dekker’s text?

2. Martha Ballard’s Diary is a story in and of itself. What did Martha include in the diary? What did she exclude? How often did she write in it? For whom or what audience was the diary intended? Did Martha have any models, literary or otherwise, on which she drew? Finally why did she keep the diary?

There are plenty of quotes from the diary at the beginning of each chapter in your reading. You should scrutinize these very carefully for clues to determine why Martha was one of the few women to keep a diary in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century New England. Ulrich also has some suggestions.

3. Is A Midwifes Tale a biography or a micro history? In the assigned article, Jill Le Pore struggles with the problem of the difference between biography and microhistory. She does figure out how they differ. Using Lepore’s definitions of biography and history, which is A Midwives Tale?

4.According to Carlo Ginzburg, the goal of microhistory is to expose interpretations of the pastas as false and over simplified. Does A Midwife’s Tale do that?Does it challenge our picture of early federal New England as a peaceful place where happy families and unified communities lived?