Final Reflection

I've enjoyed this unusual format for reflection -- placing myself in the shoes of a person we've read about. At first I found it difficult to reflect as anyone other than myself, but it has been particularly useful and interesting for me to embody points of view that are not my own, especially those that I take issue with.

Two of my blog posts took this tack, last week's letter from Talcott Parsons to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the previous week's letter from Lewis Henry Morgan to the Tammamy society. I do note, in these reflections, a lack of depth from my inability to read beyond the texts. While I do think I gained insights from the new perspectives, I don't know if I was able to think as deeply, since I was constrained by my disagreement.

I found another theme in my posts, the question of the effect of time and histories judgment. This was most apparent in my letter from Sally Hemmings to Callander, the man who wrote about her relationship with Jefferson and my letter to Thomas Holt from Money Vose, a seaman with great stories. Here, I seemed really interested in the struggle to control the narrative of the times, especially contrasted with our understanding today. I wanted to give Hemmings a voice to respond to Callander like she couldn't in real life, but I also wanted to explore the irony that I still find fascinating, that his pieces are one of the reasons we know about her story, allowing her to have a sort of upper-hand in history's perception.

This question of history's interpretation (and possible distortion) of the past is one that I wish we had discussed in class more. This was my first History class on campus and I enjoyed it immensely, getting a different perspective on issues of race and ethnicity. As a "beginner" I could have used more time looking critically at history's lenses and the act of putting together the past.