Doll\'s House First, Find a Website About

¶ … Doll's House

First, find a website about the play and then evaluate the site by answering all the questions below. Note your findings so that you can refer to them when you are working on Part B.

http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Drama/index.html

http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/goldman/Writings/Drama/doll.html

Who is the author? (An expert in the field? A scholar? A journalist? A random member of the public? A student? A politician? A paid marketer or public relations spokesperson? Note that if you cannot quickly locate this information, you might want to move to another source).

The author of this essay on "A Doll's House" is Emma Goldman. Goldman was an intellectual and a political writer and agitator, associated with left-wing political causes, chiefly anarchism. She was eventually expelled from the United States for political reasons, and sent to the Soviet Union. Ultimately her criticisms of the Soviet state caused her to be exiled again -- she would eventually die in Canada in 1940. Goldman's essay was included in her 1914 book "The Social Significance of the Modern Drama," which intends to be an intellectual survey of modern drama starting with Ibsen.

Who is the advertiser or group paying for the website? (Since hosting a website is rarely free, your job as a savvy evaluator is to learn the identity of the site's sponsors, advertisers, and/or owners. This can tell you plenty about the nature of the website's purpose, including whether the site is scholarly and credible, informational only, or misleading. ).

This is a scholarly website maintained by the library of the University of California at Berkeley, under the heading of the Emma Goldman Papers Project. Founded in 1980 as a scholarly endeavor, the Emma Goldman Papers Project receives partial financial support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, intermittentily from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and also from private donations. The website has information about how anyone can donate to keep the project free and available to all online: this is what obviates the need for advertising.

Who is the audience? (For scholarly research, you should look for a site that is geared to scholars and/or university students. Informational websites are interesting, but not based upon sound research).

The audience is for those who are doing scholarly research on Emma Goldman, or research on any of the subjects that Emma Goldman discussed in her published and unpublished writings. Goldman maintained an intellectual interest in the arts, particularly when they corresponded to her political interests. Thus Goldman's interest in "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen had to do with a larger interest in the political question of women's rights.

Is the information credible? (You should use sources that present material based upon solid reasoning and research rather than opinion only).

The website is credible insofar as it accurately presents the text of Emma Goldman's essay on "A Doll's House" within the larger context of her 1914 book "The Social Signficance of the Modern Drama," which includes four chapters devoted solely to Ibsen. Goldman's views on the play are credible insofar as she is an important intellectual and historical figure, and we are free to agree or disagree with her as we would with any critic.

Does the website offer links to additional information? (Solid websites recommend other credible sources and the information that credible websites offer can be verified by numerous scholarly publications).

The website is a treasure trove for anyone hoping to study the writings and thought of Emma Goldman. It is not specifically a resource for the study of Ibsen or "A Doll's House"-all of the links and additional information are about the critic and not the original work.

Part B: Use your findings in Part A to develop a Power Point presentation (about 5-7 slides) about the website that you examined. Slides 1-5 should highlight what you concluded about the website's credibility (develop one slide for each of the 5 criteria above). Be sure to tell if you think that the site is scholarly or merely informational. Whenever appropriate, include excerpts from the website and/or the play it features to support your claims. Provide in-text citations on slides that quote, paraphrase, and/or summarize these sources. The last slide in your presentation should list references formatted in APA style. Part C: Post the Power Point in the Discussion Area. You do not have to post the findings you noted in Part A because all that information is included in your Power Point.

SLIDE ONE:

"RED EMMA" AND "A DOLL'S HOUSE" BY HENRIK IBSEN

A look at criticism of Ibsen's play written by the 20th century political radical Emma Goldman

Presented by the University of California at Berkeley

SLIDE TWO

EMMA GOLDMAN (1869-1940)

*Born in Tsarist Russia

*Became interested in radical politics after the 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago

*Began editing an anarchist political journal in 1906

*Nicknamed "Red Emma" for her sympathy for radical politics

*Wrote "The Social Significance of Modern Drama" in 1914

*Expelled from the U.S.A. By J. Edgar Hoover in 1919 and sent to the U.S.S.R.

*Became a vocal critic of the U.S.S.R. And was eventually expelled

*Died in Canada, 1940

SLIDE THREE

The Emma Goldman Papers Project:

*Established in 1980 by the library of the University of California at Berkeley

*Aims to make Goldman's published and unpublished writing available to scholars and historians.

*Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the University of California, and private donations

*Includes Goldman's essays on Henrik Ibsen and "A Doll's House" as part of its presentation of Goldman's 1914 book on "The Social Significance of Modern Drama"