Essay Instructions.
Take as much time as you wish to prepare your response to the essay
question, but please don't take more than an hour to write it.
Your essay should be around 2 pages in length; absolutely no
longer than 2 1/2 pages double spaced with at least 1-inch
margins. The essay should be clearly organized and
whenever possible your arguments should be supported by details
and/or specific examples
drawn from lectures as well as primary and
secondary sources assigned for this class. Since
this is an exam essay, you should not include footnotes or
bibliography, and direct citations are not necessary. If you do
use a direct citation, please be sure to put the work cited and page
number in parentheses.
The questions themselves are intentionally broad. This is a
chance for you to synthesize some of what you learned and make your own
thoughtful argument about the topic of religion and violence in the
premodern world.
Note: An A essay will
present some kind of argument and
analysis, not just a string of details!
Choose ONE of the following two topics
for your essay.
In both cases the topic of your essay is given in
the first sentence, but you must construct your own argument and
support it with evidence and examples drawn from lectures and primary
and secondary source texts assigned this semester. You need not
answer all of the questions
posed below the topic. They are provided to help you think about
formulating your own thesis or argument.
Option A Comparing and contrasting
episodes of religion and violence we have studied this semester,
discuss the different religious factors that motivated individuals and/or
whole nations to commit acts of violence throughout history.
Consider some of the following questions: Which factor(s) do you
consider to be most significant and why? Were religious factors
the most important, and if not, which other factors do you think were
more important in provoking acts of local and/or widescale acts
of violence? Finally, which of the different methodological
approaches to violence we have discussed (political/diplomatic,
socio-economic, cultural, evolutionary biology, etc.) do you find most
helfpful in interpreting religious violence in premodern history?
Option B
Discuss the role of religious
persecution and martyrdom in at least 3 different historical episodes
or periods we have studied in class this semester--from early
Christianity through the seventeenth century. Consider some of
the following questions in your response: What factors motivated
the persecutors? What motivated individuals to become
martyrs? What impact did martyrdom have on the persecutors as
well as on the religious communities that were victims of
persecution? How did the phenomenon of martyrdom relate to
conversion, group identity, and/or provoking or stopping further
incidents of violence?