Topic: In an essay of 2,000 words, critically review the following scholarly article: Taylor, J. (2013) ‘Encountering Romanitas: Characterising the Role of Agricultural Communities in Roman Britain’, Britannia, 44, pp. 171–190.
Guidance notes
This TMA involves writing a longer version of something you have already done before in the unit activities, especially during Block 4: a critique of a scholarly article. You therefore already have the skills you need to complete the task.
The aim of this TMA is to assess your ability to evaluate critically and challenge the information, arguments and assumptions presented in a piece of secondary scholarship. You should present to the reader a clear summary of the evidence and arguments made, and an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the methods used, and the conclusions reached.
The article is of a relatively short length (figures and maps also fill some of the space), but you may want to read it in several different sittings, and you will certainly need to reread it at least once.
How you structure your answer is entirely up to you, but it will read better if you start out with a brief introduction, setting out the context of the article, and end it with a conclusion in which you sum up the main points you have made. In the main body of your work, you should use the three-part methodology you have used in several of the activities mentioned above.
Consider these aspects of your critique as you read and reread the article:
Summarise: identify the key points of the argument and the evidence on which it is based.
Criticise: examine the key points critically in relation to what you have learned in Block 4, assessing the use of evidence by the author and forming a judgement on the arguments they offer.
Problematise: think about aspects of the article which might be approached differently.
You may use these headings to structure your answer. You may also, however, choose to structure your answer entirely differently, perhaps by focusing on each of the key points in the article in turn. Regardless of how you do it, make sure your answer does those three things that a critique of a scholarly work always ought to, i.e. summarise, criticise, problematise.
It is important to remember, when you are summarising an argument, not to simply paraphrase what the author says but rather to distil it down in your own words and in a way that shows your reader that you have really understood the main thrust or key points of the argument. Similarly, you will need to show that you are able to pull out the parts of the article that address the three criteria mentioned above. It may be helpful for you to identify those parts of the article which present evidence and describe the material on which the argument is based as well as to consider the conceptual and theoretical approaches which drive the argument.
Some of the possible questions you may like to consider are:
What does Taylor hope to achieve in this article?
Is it clearly organised and comprehensible?
Are the links to wider discussions about the nature of cultural change in the Roman provinces clear?
What do you make of Taylor’s use of terms, like ‘rural’, ‘urban’ and ‘landscape’ and how they are used to discuss the identity of populations?
What do you make of Taylor’s use and application of anthropological and archaeological studies from different times and places?
What do you make of his chosen case studies?
How representative are they?
What do you make of the different kinds of evidence used to comment on the culture, and specifically the identity of particular populations in Roman Britain?
How rigorous are his methods in handling the evidence?
Are the graphs and maps useful for what is being presented?
Do they clearly present the evidence used and support Taylor’s analytical approach?
Does Taylor effectively integrate ideas from other scholars?
It may be useful to consider how Taylor’s discussion relates to broader approaches to cultural change in the Roman empire (see especially Block 4, Unit 5). As this piece was published in 2013, you might observe whether discussion has progressed in recent years. Getting a sense of the types of primary and secondary resources available on this topic might help you to critically assess the claims Taylor makes, and to gauge his work against the current state of the field.
Remember that all your comments should ultimately be focused on the article itself, and its strengths and weaknesses.
You should make clear how your comments relate specifically to Taylor’s piece by including references to relevant page numbers. Howevekovr, long quotations should be avoided.