SW 53: Research Guide for The Fall of the Roman Empire

The first stage of close historical reading is thinking about the topics that relate to the work. “Topic reading” is reading a primary source and imagining what kind of book, article, dissertation, or paper topics you could come up with on the basis of the source. Topics can be positivistic and interested in realia (everyday stuff), like the entries in Pauly. Topics can be cultural-historical like the entries in the Bowersock-Brown-Grabar Guide. Topics can be aimed at elucidating a particular source, or they may uncover what is hidden, sometimes even to contemporaries. Topics can be scientific, art historical, literary, archaeological, and much else. They can be incredibly specific or very broad.

 For instance, take the first line from Ausonius’s poem Mosella (371):

            I had crossed the swift Nava; mist was over the river.          

An obvious Pauly-style topic might be the Nava (the Nahe river). And you won’t be surprised to learn that that article exists. Another good positivistic topic might be “river crossing methods” with various sub-topics (bridges, wood and stone; pontoon bridges; fords; ferries). A Brown-style topic might be “mist” or “murk” in Late Antique culture, or the idea of “crossing boundaries” or “transgression.” The topic of “Rivers in Late Antiquity” could focus either on the role of rivers in transport and communications, or on the symbolic function and religious significance of rivers. An article on precipitation levels in the third century might be able to use this line as testimony for cold, wet mornings. Given that the Nava is a Celtic name (means “wild river”), another topic could be Toponymics (the naming of places). A literary topic might be “beginnings of lines” or, since Ausonius begins with the first person, “the self” in Late Antiquity. Or a topic could focus on Ausonius’s style, or on the poem itself.

But coming up with topics is just the first step.

TOPIC

FACTUAL QUESTION                    <  >               OBSERVATION/FACT

^^v                                     diagonal arrows                                   ^^v

INTERPRETIVE QUESTION                    >        INTERPRETATION/ARGUMENT

Argument is the key. Evidence for it is a series of observations and sub-arguments, inspired by good factual and interpretive questions. You should imagine the main argument of your paper as a big river (à propos of the Mosella) with several tributaries, which are the other arguments. Everything in the paper must support the main argument.