Assignment Details

Creative Presentation and Paper Directions

 

  • Each student will be assigned one historical figure (your historical BFF).
  • You will have to do research on your person (reading Wikipedia’s results does not count as research).
  • You need to find at least two books or journal articles published by a scholarly press, that discusses the person.
  • You will use one publication of your BFF (declaration, decree, law, poem, short story, novel, newspaper article, public speech) to present on your author.
  • You will use an event of your choice in the life of your BFF that will allow you to discuss the time period your he/she lived in (passing of a law, signing of a decree, foundation of a party or secret society, creation of a specific piece of art or literature).
  • You should also pick one specific event in the life of this person and use it to narrate his/her life.
  • You will have to place the event/s you picked in historical context and elaborate on the historical background developing a narration around the life of the person assigned to you.
  • You will write down the biography of the author assigned to you, describing his/her life, works and the poignant event you picked to discuss the author’s life and his mark left in East Asian history (this section of the assignment must be at least 5 pages long, 12 font, times new roman, double spaced). 
  • You will have a bibliography (after the 5 pages of Bio) and you will use Chicago style for citation and bibliography.
  • Part of your grade will be based on the research you have done to discover info and secrets about the person; part on the formally written paper with citations and footnotes (Chicago style, repeat, Chicago style); and part on the creativity of the presentation of your writer. 
  • You MUST come to see Dr. Ravagnoli once during the semester to discuss the research
  • You MUST consult watch the tutorials on the course guide and consult with a librarian during the research period before the papers and presentations are due.

List of Historical BFFs

  1. Ito Hirobumi 
  2. Jiang Qing 
  3. Madame Chiang 
  4. Bing Xin 
  5. Zhang Ailing 
  6. Mao Zedong 
  7. Yuan Shikai 
  8. Tokugawa Ieyasu 
  9. Oda Nobunaga 
  10. Zeng Guofan 
  11. Li Hongzhang 
  12. Liang Qichao 
  13. Sun Yat-sen 
  14. Phan Chu Trinh 
  15. Phan Boi Chau
  16. Ho Chi Minh 
  17. Bao Dai 
  18. Hong Xiuquan 
  19. Ch’oe Che-u 
  20. Lu Xun 
  21. Chiang Kai-shek
  22. Chen Duxiu -
  23. Deng Xiaoping 
  24. Shinzo Abe 
  25. Jiang Zemin 
  26. Syngman Rhee 
  27. Kim Jong-Il 
  28. Park Yeonmi 
  29. Park Jung-Hee 
  30. Hirohito 
  31. Peng Dehuai
  32. Kim Phuc 
  33. Nguyen Thi Dinh 
  34. Yu Gwansun
  35. Hu Jintao