CMS150 - Winter 2001
Trials of Conscience: Litigation
and the Rhetoric of Identity
Source Analysis
Preparing a source analysis will require you to analyze the primary
text we are reading (and secondary readings about it) from a
historical point of view. The following series of questions are
designed to help you perfom that analysis. You may discover that you
cannot answer all these questions based on a reading of the primary
text alone. If that is the case, simply note that the text doesn't
supply the answer. However, subsequent secondary readings in the unit
will usually provide the answers to these questions. In those
instances, go back to the case analysis and write down your answers.
You will also find it helpful to write down a citation for the page
in the primary or secondary text where you have found the answer.
You can obtain a clean text of the source
analysis form at this link.
- The Authorship of the Text
- Is the source autobiographical? If yes,
- What do we know about the author from sources
independent of this text?
- Was this text written directly by the author or
dictated?
- Is the source a memoir or recollection by someone other
than the person accused? If yes,
- What do we know about the person who wrote the text
independent of the text itself?
- What was the relationship of the person who wrote the
text to the person accused?
- What was the relationship of the person who wrote the
text to the accusers?
- Did the person who wrote the text have any official role
in the trial of the accused?
- Did the person who wrote the text have any unofficial
role in the trial of the accused?
- Does the trial role (or absence thereof) of the person
who created the text affect the way you evaluate the text's
historical accuracy and reliability?
- Did the person who wrote the text have a particular
personal or political agenda implicated directly or
indirectly by the trial and its outcome?
- Do such agendas affect the way you evaluate the text's
historical accuracy and reliability?
- Is the text an official document (e.g., transcript) of the
trial? If yes,
- Who created the text?
- Under whose authority did the person who created the
text act?
- In what language was the text originally prepared?
- Is this the native language of the person accuse?
- Do we know if the person accused had any knowledge of
the language in which the text was prepared?
- Did the accused, or any person representing the accused,
have any opportunity to review or correct the text?
- Did any persons other than the accusers have any
opportunity to review or correct the text?
- The Nature of the Text
- When the text created?
- How contemporaneous was the creation of the text with the
trial?
- If there was any delay between the trial and the creation
of the text, how do you account for it?
- Do matters or events which explain a delay between the
trial and the creation of the text undermine the reliability of
the text as a historically accurate source?
- Does the text reveal traits of a specific literary genre?
- If the text is an example of a literary genre, how do
conventional or generic features of the text affect the way you
evaluate the text for historical accuracy?
- Evidence in Addition to the Text
- What other accounts of the trial exist in addition to the
one we have read for class?
- Are these accounts explicitly autobiographical,
recollective or transcriptive in nature?
- Do you know if these accounts agree with or contradict our
text's representation of the trial and its participants?
- What factors may explain agreements and contradictions
between different accounts of the trial?
- If these other accounts are not explicitly
autobiographical, recollective or transcriptive in nature, what
sort of accounts are they?
- If these other accounts are not explicitly
autobiographical, recollective or transcriptive in nature, how
should you value them in coming to an historical understanding
of the trial?
- Is there evidence of the trial from contemporary sources
other than written texts (e.g. inscriptions, account books,
paintings or mosaics)?
- How can you use these types of evidence in coming to an
historical understanding of the trial?