Some starting points developed by Prof. Truax...
Avoid very ancient, pre-textual cultures. Classical (like ancient Greek) and forward will make your research much more manageable.
For example, ONE saint’s worship practice (ex, Santa Muerte).
Alternately, you can look at comparing or combining two things if you focus on ONE very narrow time period. (ex from previous semester, “Morality of Religious Conversion: A Closer Look at the Christianization of Canadian Shamanism").
Useful if you're still more broadly exploring.
I am studying __________________
because I want to know ___________________________
in order to help my readers understand ____________________________________.
For the philosophy component, you'll be working through a framework of
Death in the New World: Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-1800 by
Reminders of death were everywhere in the New World, from the epidemics that devastated Indian populations and the mortality of slaves working the Caribbean sugar cane fields to the unfamiliar diseases that afflicted Europeans in the Chesapeake and West Indies. According to historian Erik R. Seeman, when Indians, Africans, and Europeans encountered one another, they could not ignore the similarities in their approaches to death. All of these groups believed in an afterlife to which the soul or spirit traveled after death. As a result all felt that corpses--the earthly vessels for the soul or spirit--should be treated with respect, and all mourned the dead with commemorative rituals. Seeman argues that deathways facilitated communication among peoples otherwise divided by language and custom. They observed, asked questions about, and sometimes even participated in their counterparts' rituals. At the same time, insofar as New World interactions were largely exploitative, the communication facilitated by parallel deathways was often used to influence or gain advantage over one's rivals. In Virginia, for example, John Smith used his knowledge of Powhatan deathways to impress the local Indians with his abilities as a healer as part of his campaign to demonstrate the superiority of English culture. Likewise, in the 1610-1614 war between Indians and English, the Powhatans mutilated English corpses because they knew this act would horrify their enemies. Told in a series of engrossing narratives, Death in the New World is a landmark study that offers a fresh perspective on the dynamics of cross-cultural encounters and their larger ramifications in the Atlantic world.
This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
This Mortal Coil: A Guardian, Economist & Prospect Book of the Year by
Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age, and where famine could be just one bad harvest away, to one where in many countries excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it. Why have the reasons we die changed so much? How is it that a century ago people died mainly from infectious disease, while today the leading causes of death in industrialised nations are heart disease and stroke? And what do changing causes of death reveal about how previous generations have lived? University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an eye-opening portrait of death throughout history, looking at particular causes - from infectious disease to genetic disease, violence to diet - who they affected, and the people who made it possible to overcome them. Along the way we hear about the long and torturous story of the discovery of vitamin C and its role in preventing scurvy; the Irish immigrant who opened the first washhouse for the poor of Liverpool, and in so doing educated the public on the importance of cleanliness in combating disease; and the Church of England curate who, finding his new church equipped with a telephone, started the Samaritans to assist those in emotional distress. This Mortal Coil is a thrilling story of growing medical knowledge and social organisation, of achievement and, looking to the future, of promise.
This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new window
PowerNotes is a research manager that works on anything you can open in your browser. Save and organize quotes as you research so you've got an outline ready to go. The built-in citation tool can export a bibliography.
This link opens in a new window Lone Star College-University Park • Student Learning Resource Center
20515 SH 249 • Building 12, 8th Floor • Houston, TX 77070
This work by Lone Star College-University Park Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 