Introduction to Historical Methods

I would like in this post to write about the subject matter of constructing the hero or villan figure in history and in popular culture.  Nicholas’ presentation of General George Armstrong Custer’s cult of personality as a hero was terrific.  He addressed the need of celebrity figures in popular culture as a reflection of cultural values during a period of time.  Custer during the Civil War and Frontier Wars was a large celebrity figure due to his own construction and with help from national newspapers and magazines.  Al Capone during the 1920’s was indeed a celebrity in his time but not to the way Al wanted so.  Capone himself at first refused to be photograph and there are accounts where he would assault the press for trying to capture images of him, but his approach to the press completely changed later on as he would smile for photographers and captured the limelight when he could.  Capone after December of 1927 did not have the luxury of political backing and he strove to win the hearts and minds of poor Chicagoians.  He painted himself as a leader of a workingman’s movement against the “bankrupt establishment” by opening a soup kitchen two months removed from the October 1929 stock market crash.  The media demonized him for his criminal acts and Capone despised them for it.  The Chicago Crime Commission labeled Al Capone as “Public Enemy #1″ and the media helped to propagate that point.

As I have addressed in my previous post, meeting with David from the UMW Speaking Center was a pleasant experience and helped to relieve a little of my outrageous amount of speech anxiety I have as I currently have beads of sweat dripping from my face just thinking about it.  As I think of it now, I feel confident in performing my speech tomorrow because I know that my fellow classmates are feeling in a similar way before their presentations and encouragement from them.  I would like to praise the three presentations from Wednesday’s meeting.  All of them were very fluid in their presentation, clear, and hints of passion in all three of them.

The tips that David gave to me in speech construction was to organize your speech in to diffferent subtopics and go into each of them with enough detail required instead of reading a paper or trying to remember everything.  He insisted that my speech would be great if I know the data by heart, and give an impromptu speech with using notecards as a guide because what is spoken does not have to be identical to whats on the paper or on your notes for that matter.  He also recommended a powerpoint technique known as “reveal and conceal.”  You would start off the powerpoint by using a blank slide and when you are ready to use the aid, flip to the next slide which would have your visual aid (picture, map, or little bit of text).  After you have mentioned the significant data relating to your visual aid, go to the next slide which would be blank and do this throughout your speech.  I am going to implement this method in my speech tomorrow, hopefully I will not choke during the speech.

I am writing about the speech I am giving tomorrow for History 299.  I feel confident in the fact that I can give a good speech courtesy from your comments about my Literary Review Presentation.  The UMW Speaking Center has also been of a great assistance as well.  David who was my speaking consultant, gave me plenty of helpful tips on speech construction and what could be effective visual aids.  My experience in H299 has been a rough but a pleasant experience and personally should count for four credits instead of three due to the level of research required in a similar fashion as most labs.  I am still anxious in giving my speech but I am confident that I will deliever a good one.

With four days left until the rough draft of the HIST 299 thesis paper, I feel like I am in control of my destiny.  Thus far I have found a plethora of secondary sources and a few primary sources.  Because the paper will have to deal with primary sources, I feel that the only trouble I am encountering is how I can fit more of these sources into possibly 3/4 of my paper.  The interview with Dr. Aminrazavi helped me a lot to specify my argument in 2 of the three sections of my essay’s body.  However, I am struggling in finding more sources on the political aspect of United States intervention in Iran.  I feel that I can find that through Tehran’s newspaper in the 1970’s which I will be looking through today and tomorrow.  As far as the essay goes, I believe I am in a good spot for amount of information to complete it.

I am glad to say that I am making progress with my research paper. I finally started digging into my T.E. Lawrence primary source (better late than never) and I am finding great information in it. I had already began to form my argument regarding their relationship and their work just by reading Bell’s primary sources. I have to say my project is taking a slightly different turn based on Lawrence’s portrayl of Bell. At times in his letters, he almost seems frightened of Bell. Frightened that she might publicly critique his work (as she often did in private) and make him look like an idiot. Underneath this fear, Lawrence held a great deal of respect for Bell. She was his toughest critic, which would lead to his best work. In one letter, Lawrence describes Bell’s reaction to his latest book. Bell supposedly said “Approved: all but the libellous untruthful description of yourself”. Bell is pretty much attacking the “Lawrence legend” which I discussed in my lit. review presentation. The relationship between these two is becoming more interesting as I dig deeper into my sources.

Quote from:

The Letters of T.E. Lawrence. Edited by David Garnett. New York: Doubleday Press, 1939.

As the title says the time has finally come to write the paper which i have been researching about for more than three months now. The biggest problem, for me at least, is how exactly am I actually going to do this and not completely suck at it. So…..I have had to do a lot of thinking about how to actually write this paper. As most people who have actually heard me talk about my topic at length will realize it is something that i actually believe in and at this point to write something like this and actually have it be worth a damn you have to be.

So what I have been thinking is that this paper needs to make the person reading it understand why I feel the way I do, but with facts. You cant really look someone in the eye and tell them they are wrong for thinking a way just by putting words on a page. Throughout our history, great writers have been able to do what I seek. You have to try and change the ideas that the reader has from the begining and try to open their eyes to a new way of looking at things, which is never easy. So in my search to do this, I am also trying to remember that nothing in the world is black or white. The all knowing ‘grey area’ is everywhere all around us. While the firebombings of Japan and Germany were war crimes, at the times, we have a great way to justify them. I have been playing around with that idea in my mind for weeks and came to a great conculsion. Anyone can justify murder, if they are crazy enough to think it is okay.

-Nick

I’ve finally sat down and started to pick through my primary sources. This process has actually helped me come up with a formal thesis, which I have been struggling with.  I believe that my paper will argue that the not only was the UN effort a failure, but that it actually made things worse in Bosnia. I’ve found tons of testimonies from Bosnian citizens on thier experience with UN soldiers and Bosnian officials who wanted UN troops to acually leave Bosnia.

       Palms sweaty, heart racing, face heating up, and the room closing in, all symptoms of presentation freak out!!

I guess my best advice for a great, semi-stress free presentation would be to come prepared, know your subject well and be flexible on the content, in case your running over the time frame (something I learned from our recent presentation).

The biggest mistake a presenter can make is letting the audience know that they have made a mistake. Giving a presentation is kind of like performing, if you mess just keep smiling and move on, most likely the audience won’t even realize what happened.

Other than this short list of helpful tidbits, just remember that you are not alone, there are 20 other people in the classroom freaking out just like you. This thought usually reassures me before I’m called down to the gauntlet.