Short Answer Questions
(class 18, homework 18)

Note:

(1) assignments appear in the syllabus on the day assigned, not the day due

(2) You must submit your written work by blackboard

(3) BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FILE-NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR THIS COURSE (5% penalty if you do not).

All files should be saved on your computer as: your last name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the first two letters of your first name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the assignment number. So if a student named Saddam Hussein were to submit assignment number 18, the file name would be:

hussein_sa_18.doc

THIS IS ASSIGNMENT 18

2 Questions From the Mazower Reading

1) Thinking about your reading in the textbook, p. 93 – 101, the excerpts from Racism: A Short History, and the excerpt from Mazower, which minority group member would have experienced more tolerance from the dominant society around them: a Jew in Christian Spain in 1492, or a Jew in the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1500? Back up your response with evidence in the form of direct quotations from both of the readings.

The Recent War in the Former Yugoslavia: you can watch a very short history of the start of this war on a DVD on reserve at the library, look for the DVD entitled Yugoslavia. Doing so, however, is entirely optional. But do see the extra-credit below...

2 ) In the 1990s, the Balkans -- the region described in the excerpt from Mazower -- erupted into war between various ethno-religious groups in the area. In 1993, an American political scientist -- Samuel Huntington -- described the Balkan wars as a "Clash of Civilizations" between Christianity and Islam, with a global fault line between these two "civilizations" running through the Balkans. For Huntington, the Balkan wars of the 1990s were the latest example of violence between groups who felt "ancient hatreds" for each other and that had, for centuries, lived on different sides of a civilizational divide.

Thinking about the evidence provided in the excerpt above from Mazower, write a paragraph that assesses the accuracy of Huntington's explanation of the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

Organize your paragraph around a claim (such as "Huntington's explanation is accurate/inaccurate for reason X.") Then support your claim with evidence in the form of direct quotations from the excerpt from Mazower. After supplying evidence for your claim, write a warrant that links your evidence to your claim. Finally, you must label your claim/evidence/warrant: put a (CL) before your claim, a (EV) before your evidence, and a (WA) before your warrant.



Extra-Credit (worth a potential 25 extra points):

Watch the excerpt entitled Yugoslavia on the DVD at the library. Then write a second paragraph to the one your wrote for question 3 that offers an an alternative explanation for the cause of the Balkan war to the "ancient hatreds" / "Clash of Civilizations" explanatory model favored by Samuel Huntington. Organize your paragraph around a claim. Then support your claim with evidence in the form of direct quotations from the excerpt entitled Yugoslavia. (see transcript here). Limit your equations to no more than 10 words. After supplying evidence for your claim, write a warrant that links your evidence to your claim regarding that dynasty. Finally, you must label your claim/evidence/warrant: put a (CL) before your claim, a (EV) before your evidence, and a (WA) before your warrant.

END OF ASSIGNMENT