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By Cordelia

In Hance Auditorium today at 4:30 pm gathered three senior history majors to present their subsequent researched projects created in a seminar class. The three students were Kate LeGrand, Andres Franco, and Danny Guenther. I found each presentation to be quite interesting, and the topics varied in extreme ways. Kate’s project consisted of extensive research of the CIA in the 1940s and 50s leading to an emphasis on relations with Iran, and an accumulation of the research into a work of historical fiction – a novel, in fact. Andres worked on research regarding the extent to which drugs a played a role in King Jong-Il’s North Korea and Danny worked on figuring out why John Wesley, the British founder of the Methodist church and avid abolitionist, took so long to come out publicly with anti-slavery decrees.

I found Kate’s project the most interesting, actually, because she went beyond the simple research paper and created a work of fiction as a part of a new movement in which historical fiction is, quite frankly, scarily accurate. She went on to discuss how television shows such as Covert Affairs and Homeland create unrealistic portrayals of historic agencies like the CIA and how she would like her work, or at least the concept of her work, to also eventually transcend into screenplays. After our class discussion regarding this particular topic – and having watched the ridiculously conceived “Sleepy Hollow,” Kate’s presentation served as a particularly refreshing insight. With her work, not only can historical fiction be entertaining and have the ability to sell, but also to be historically accurate. As Carolyn mentions in her earlier blog post regarding the Sorlin article, it can be useful to include a bias in historical films, as they add to a conclusion on the mindsets of the time, however, Kate’s concept rids the field for any need of this.

I also found Danny’s presentation to be interesting as he acknowledged that much research has already been completed on John Wesley and his anti-slavery stances, but not much has been done regarding why he waited to publicly declare those feelings. After all, he already was leading a movement of reform in the church. His research was well composed and his speech was well delivered.

Overall, I had a majorly good experience in Hance Auditorium today.