I'm a second-year student and currently writing my undergraduate dissertation proposal. I'm pretty stressed as I'm stuck on what to do for it. I have had to change last minute from doing Soviet propaganda as I would not be able to translate Russian language sources effectively which would be essential for that. Any ideas and advice from you would be greatly appreciated in directing me to develop an interesting, original and practical topic to research.
Should I do something I have already got a lot of knowledge on or go for how interesting it sounds?
Does any of the below catch your eye as a good topic? I'm considering:
Unfortunate Sons: Life as a GI in Vietnam (also considering doing this for soldiers in the First World War) - What was it like? Can compare their experience with other wars - look at who they were (more minorities etc.). If the hippie movement had some justification in calling them all war criminals. Was racism towards the Vietnamese prolific - lots of primary sources for this
Is this suitable for a dissertation topic?? would this be too descriptive, without an argument from a certain angle? Would doing 'life in the trenches' be better?
I'm Also very interested in Ideology in History. For example, the ideas of Egality Liberty and Brotherhood from the French Revolution but I don't know where to start in terms of writing up a title. There would again be the language issue although I do speak some French. Could look at Nationalism in Italian unification or Germany in WW2.
Analysing success and failure of communism in Barcelona in 1936 and comparing it with communism elsewhere? would love to do this but is it way too complex and broad? Also I don't speak Spanish
Another Idea is the Cultural Influences the British Empire had on the World. Examples could be used to analyse what these were and how much it changed in a particular region. Thinking a part of India for this
Thank you so much for reading. I know this is a lot of questions but its good to have opinions on what other students find interesting and think would be suitable for a 10000 word dissertation.
tl;dr I have all of human history, what do I pick!! Any ideas for? : Life of a soldier in Vietnam/ww1? Something to do with an ideology, Communism in Barcelona 1936? British Empire influences in a particular region?
I'm not asking for answers just advice on historical topics. Kind Regards,
A panicing uni student
This might sound dull but whatever you pick for your proposal make sure that there are likely primary sources are not just in your language but are to some degree local to you. The Internet is great but even in this day and age there's still no real substitute for archival work.
Take the British Empire topic for example, would there be documents at a local / accessible national archive for you to use or are they held overseas.
Reading is super important but don't neglect the practical side of the topic you chose for your dissertation (or indeed in your proposal) , I knew lots of people in my undergraduate days who chose to go for some big exciting topic only to find that it meant a trip all the way across the country (and in some cases multiple countries) which severely hampered them. Choosing something for which the primary sources are accessible will make your life so much easier.
As you've probably figured out, the single most important thing to do is to pick a topic and just go. Forget the others. So with that said...
In any of these cases, you're not picked the thesis of your argument, or even the question that you will be answering. That will come later, out of your research!
Take your first idea, GIs in Vietnam. So you read a bunch of books about the experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War. And not just firsthand accounts. You read secondary analyses about race and racism within units, morale, POWs, injured soldiers, medics' views, chaplains, what have you. Follow footnotes in the books and articles you read to more footnotes. Eventually you'll start to zero in on a couple of things you're interested in--say, soldiers' changing relationship with all things America (pop culture, family members, politics, etc). You read more down that route. Eventually, you get to a point where you realize hey, there's not much research on how social class mattered in the effect that the war had on GIs' relationships with their girlfriends back home. (...I dunno, this isn't what I do).
So don't worry about getting too far ahead of yourself just yet! It's natural for your topic to evolve and narrow down into your question. (I had to propose a question and thesis for my PhD dissertation, even--while my topic has stayed the same, the question is VERY different, and this is not just okay but expected).
It's really good that you're already thinking of language issues. Access to primary sources in your language is another topic. I can see how looking at the British Empire would be useful because there are probably lots of published collections of sources there. Or stuff like 19th century travelogues available for free on Google Books/archive.org. Maybe you could start by reading a bunch of those, along with the scholarship on their authors or on the genre of texts, and work your way towards a thesis that way. How do authors of travelogues in Africa vs Asia talk about Empire? etc.
Basically: pick a topic--just do it, you'll pull it off--and start reading. You'll read your way into your question, and you'll read your way into your answer. :)