Intellectual Figure/Research Topic Assignment

INTELLECTUAL FIGURE/RESEARCH TOPIC ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS

OVERVIEW
A one-page thesis statement identifying a theme in the development of western freedoms, a
thinker, and the thesis that you will defend:

You will pick a theme in the development of western freedoms, a specific thinker over whom you
would like to write your intellectual biography and the thesis you will defend. The theme could
have to do with forms of government, conceptions of sovereignty (e.g., absolute or popular,
confederated or federal), natural law, natural rights, common law, merchant law (lex mercatoria),
the development of representative government, rival conceptions of it (e.g., classical
republicanism, constitutional monarchy, liberal democracy), popular participation in government
(extent of the franchise and its qualifications), property ownership (e.g., narrowly vs. broadly
distributed, feudal or allodial, with primogeniture and entail or not), the role played by economic
theory (free enterprise or managed economy, systems of public finance), the roles played by
education, morality, religion, and private associations, church-state relations, etc. This is meant
only as a suggestive, not an exhaustive, list. The topic you choose will be one that has taken place
within context of the broadest conversations of western freedoms, and hence, is already present in
germinal form at an early point.

You will also choose a specific thinker upon whom you will focus as regards your theme, with
the goal of writing an intellectual biography tracing the influences on that thinker from the
entirety of intellectual history, and tracing the history of his or her effects on those who follow.
Choose a historical figure from within the broadest conversations of western freedom (Aristotle,
Polybius, Cicero, Tacitus, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Althusius, Harrington, Milton,
Sidney, Locke, Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Montesquieu, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton et
al.). Be sure to situate your figure in their historical context and identify the major intellectual
influences on their thought, as well as those whom they influenced. Such influences will include
classical, medieval, renaissance, reformation, and modern.

You should also try to articulate a thesis for which you will argue concerning your theme and
thinker (at a minimum, the goal you hope to achieve at this preliminary stage). Please note this
assignment’s importance: The topic and thinker you choose will be important as you work
through assignments that cumulatively build toward the intellectual biography. Because this is a
course in intellectual history (the history of ideas), you should choose an idea that is treated by
thinkers over time and that undergoes development. This course traces the development of a
grand idea, liberty, tracing its various aspects. Hence it is important that we understand how each
figure conceived of liberty in the context of his day, and whence that understanding came.

INSTRUCTIONS
For this assignment you will provide the chosen theme and thinker you wish to research and
write a one-page summary outlining the objective/argument you intend to make in your final
paper. This begins preliminary research that you will continue all term. This statement of your
research topic, thinker, and thesis must include footnotes (in Turabian format) to five academic
sources. It is understood that this assignment merely seeks to highlight an individual of interest
that could change as the student’s reading continues. Any changes must be approved by the
professor.
The assignment must comply with current Turabian format.

notes:
-mkae two pages work on you chosen theme and thinker. Use TURABIAN format woth minimum 5 sources and use footnotes too!

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