Week 2

One thing I’ve learned this week is that there is a lot of disagreement among scholars about the role of collective memory in Turkey. Many scholars use the term neo-Ottomanism to describe Turkish foreign policy, but this ends up becoming, as Nicholas Danforth (a Georgetown alum) says, “The Nonsense of Neo-Ottomanism.” Here’s a link to his article if anyone is interested: https://warontherocks.com/2020/05/the-nonsense-of-neo-ottomanism/ 

One challenge I’ve faced this week is creating a plan for my final essay and sticking to it. I’m finding it hard to narrow down my research topic so that I can find one thesis and essay. I plan to overcome that challenge by working with my faculty mentor to create an outline that I will change as I get further into writing my essay.

One goal I’ve set myself for the upcoming week is to finish the first section of my final paper. This part is about the role of history and memory in shaping Turkish and Russian foreign policy. Hopefully I’ll be able to write at least a first draft this week!

Week 3

One thing that I’ve learned this week is that I need to focus on thinking about how sources fit into my argument. Until I began writing, I was looking at sources to try and gain a better understanding of my topic as a whole. Now I’m looking at sources as pieces of evidence to support my argument, so often I have to just look at the few sections of an article that are relevant to my thesis. 

One challenge I’ve faced is writing without having a specific prompt. I’m finding it hard to decide what to write because I don’t have a prompt, grading rubric, or set of expectations to reference. I plan to overcome that challenge by creating a few guidelines for myself in collaboration with my faculty mentor. 

One goal that I set for myself the upcoming week is finishing the pragmatic populism section of my paper. My faculty mentor and I discussed what we think should go in the section, and I started writing today and hopefully, I will finish by the end of next week.