#also I'm a bit scared cuz I plan on writing two term papers this semester and idk how well that will work

[breitzbachbea]

for the essay ask thing: 5, 10, 14!

I've finally got time for this, after I've been stuck at my uni library for the past two weeks for my presentation 😭 That's actually a thing - Because most professors over here in Germany, unless you are studying something like Amerikanistik or something with a more British/American focus, don't really do essays. My coursework so far has rather been little exercises to get the grasp of working scientifically as a Historian, doing presentations or diving deeper into the themes of a lecture. (Latter ones might count as essays, honestly). So what I am going to talk about are my term papers :)

Essay Ask Game

5. What is an essay topic that’s been floating around in your head for a long time?

God, I feel like I've been factory reset over the summer with how bad my depression was. I know I used to have lots and lots of ideas for essays, but I can't remember any. Except one, and I might as well talk about it, because I think I will probably write my BA Thesis in Medieval or Ancient Studies. A year or two ago, I got into a really heated discussion with a friend of mine about the whole 'Was Beethoven black?' thing. It was mostly me being mad at how un-scientifically such claims argue and how many layers there are to understanding the past. It did however birth the idea for a Thesis. Because I did think it would be interesting to look at how people describe other people in that time period, and thusly contextualize how they understood the world and one another. This then morphed into going through letters or other "Selbstzeugnisse" (Historical sources that are explicitly autobiographical and highly subjective by genre, like letters, diaries, autobiographies, etc.) by people who in some way, shape or form lived a queer* experience. And then look at another genre or genres of historical texts, like maybe legislation or pamphlets or philosophical texts, that also deal with 'deviant' gender or sexual behavior. Take a look at how people talked about themselves, how these things differ, how these things influence each other - Basically, looking for 'tropes' and 'stereotypes' of queer identity, asking where do they come from and maybe even find that some persist to this day.

*I do want to stress that I know that sexuality and gender is a highly different thing in each time, place and culture. So I'd have to first work out how sexuality & gender would work in the timeframe, place and culture I've chosen and then define what I'd treat as different from the norm. Moreover, I of course wouldn't try to assign anybody any modern terms of gender or sexuality, but, yknow, that people have loved people and have felt different about who they should be is a constant throughout time.

10. Has an essay of a classmate ever inspired you?

We don't write man essays and I never read anyone else's term paper, sadly. However, there have been some very good presentations in my classes recently that really got me thinking about the topics. One on Depictions of Violence in Ancient Art was great with how important and highly culturally specific the immediate interpretation of a picture is. Plus, I've been having Historical AU brainrot about Roman Masculinity and how it is entangled with violence ever since I've read the paper by Felix Pirson that the classmate picked as mandatory reading. Actually, add to the list of "Essays/Thesis I would love to write": Do we have any good surviving sources that could tell us about Gender in the Celtic World? (More specifically one part of the Celtic world, I'd love to go for Britain or Ireland, but Gaul or parts of Germany would also be super interesting

14. What essay are you most proud of yourself?

I'm proud of all of my term papers! And I do love the one I did about Curse Tablets at Acquae Sulis and how religious syncretism is one of the cogs of two-way Romanization that stabilized the Imperial reign in the Provinces. But I guess the one I am the proudest of, especially because it wasn't rushed (thanks to getting 2 extra months to Corona, sadly), is my medieval one. I took two excerpts from the Villani Brothers' Nuova Cronica and had to translate the Matteo one by myself, armed with nothing but basic Italian, a ton of Online ressources and context clues from secondary literature. The paper was essentially about how the Italy politics of the House of Luxembourg was represented in the Villani chronicles. I compared Henry VII. and Charles IV., with a focus on the latter because he was the class' topic. I'm just so proud of that one, I think it's really good and it reflects both how the political times had changed in less than 50 years and how differently both Grandfather and Grandchild (Henry and Charles) and Brother & Brother (Giovanni and Matteo Villani) approached it. The two primary sources I used talked about their coronation with the Iron Crown in Milan and their stay in the city - With Giovanni talking about Henry, you can feel this reverence for aristocrazy he still has and this hope for a more orderly Italy. With Matteo talking about Charles, you can feel HOW FUCKING MUCH MATTEO HATED THE VISCONTI. Twas fun! Definitely my most coherent work.