Hext topic ideas (1 Viewer)

[jenniferblack]

Hi!

It's been a term into the course and I have yet to decide exactly what my topic for my major work is going to be.
I want to look at Hitler's diaries, and circulate around the idea of forgery being a form of history but I'm not entirely sure where else to go from here / what concepts to further my research around.

Does anyone have any ideas or could give me a direction to go towards?

 

[Frostguard]

Dang your topic sounds really interesting!!! Apart from your idea of forgery being a form of history I guess you could talk about
-other historians who have performed the same thing OR find out other forms that can be controversially classified as real histories such as art, films, other forms of written/visual histories that are not the normalcy (as in classic textbook and pages of writing)
- you could talk about some historians who agree and disagree with Hitler's diaries as forms of history because of clsssic comptemporsry debates (such as academic vs popular history or the usage of bias or the omittance of certain things, eg selective information) link this back to your focus question to make it as historiographical as possible and as controversial as possible
I hope this makes your essay a little bit easier? (Idk lol I'm doing French Revolution so yeah lol)

 

[jenniferblack]

Dang your topic sounds really interesting!!! Apart from your idea of forgery being a form of history I guess you could talk about
-other historians who have performed the same thing OR find out other forms that can be controversially classified as real histories such as art, films, other forms of written/visual histories that are not the normalcy (as in classic textbook and pages of writing)
- you could talk about some historians who agree and disagree with Hitler's diaries as forms of history because of clsssic comptemporsry debates (such as academic vs popular history or the usage of bias or the omittance of certain things, eg selective information) link this back to your focus question to make it as historiographical as possible and as controversial as possible
I hope this makes your essay a little bit easier? (Idk lol I'm doing French Revolution so yeah lol)

You're a life saver, thank you!!

The French Revolution sounds fascinating! I hope your project goes well Can I ask what progress you've maded so far? I wanna see if I'm on track or procrastinating too much LOL
Our teacher is super intense and constantly makes me feel like my work and everything I do is bare minimum hahah

 

[jenniferblack]

Actually, I wanted to ask if you could elaborate on your second point?

I feel as though the biggest disadvantage about doing my MW on Hitler's Diaries is the fact that there's not many resources or academic essays on it (historiographically wise), I mean there are a ton of newspaper articles on it but they solely recount what's happened rather than discuss and debate the controversies? Do you think that it's worth pursuing, I mean I'd have to refer back to a few historians in my essay after all and if there aren't many contributions .. I may be in some deep trouble lol,,, or should I focus on a historical concept, and in that way use Hitler's Diaries as a case study...

Hmm.. typing this out is helping me articulate some ideas from my haphazard thought processes HAHA

 

[Frostguard]

Within this 6 week break I want to at least finish my research so I can bludge the next 3 terms to write my essay, but realistically I've only finished half my introduction, I haven't included the historians I'm going to use in my project, it's ok if you haven't started LMAO a lot of people haven't and are trying to get motivated/understand how to actually write a historiography essay, not a history essay lol

As for the second point, search up on historians who have anything to do with Hitler's diaries, even if you only have a couple historians, I see it as a positive thing, means there a less conflicting and confusing perspectives to understand, eg my French Revolution topic on changing interpretations of Marie Antoinette's role in the French Revolution over time has tons of historians, which you may think is good but not necessarily, it makes the research harder to do lol. I'm reading up on a bunch of context, information and other student essays and I'm not exactly sure how to structure my essay lol or even what my body arguments will be about.
Basically find out as much information and the context of your related historians, even better if you can debates/controversies on Hitler's Diaries, and if you cannot find anything, then as a last resort focus on another historical concept and use HD as a case study, which might be even harder because it means you gotta search up on 2 things rather than just H D, I don't really know haha
Good luck with your essay too and we can suffer together!!!!
It's good that you're typing this out, it really makes you think about how you can approach this and you're self-evaluating your project's directions, if you have any more questions ask away and we'll see how we can progress with this