Choosing A Topic
Like many students I’ve always struggled at narrowing my area of interest down. I find it extremely difficult to sit down and ask myself questions about an area or subject that interests me, especially how I can work that interest into something academic. The article posted on the University of British Colombia’s historical website was incredibly useful in helping me determine my topic of interest.
One of the aspects of history that I’ve had a heavier interest in is intellectuals and the progression of intellectual ideas. I love the concept of one individual producing an innovative thought and that thought being used and built off of throughout its field for the rest of time as we know it.
Not only that, but every field of study has some kind, if not several, of thinker that paves the way for future innovators, due to their prior research and ideas. From construction, to philosophy, to government, to transportation, to all forms of art. Ideas and the intellectuals that think of them affect every aspect of human life.
The class that I am in, and will be conducting my research in, is that of Modern Western Civilization, so what could be considered as the latter half of human intellectual development. During these past 400 years to the present the human race has put out intellectuals and intellectual ideas at a rate that has never been seen before.
Griffin, after some secondary source research, we might want to narrow to a particular focus of philosophical thought, or one of the areas you list above. Or, since you seem focused on innovation, the very notion of innovation is currently being parsed in the literature. Or a focus on a particular individual’s contribution might work.