Note: Because my internship with the CHNM spans two different projects – Pandemic Religion this semester and the Appalachian Trail project next – this blog post addresses prompt five.
What about your internship has been an eye-opening (new or unexpected) experience?
The Pandemic Religion project is a little different in that we’re collecting artifacts in real time, capturing history as it’s, quite literally, happening. I say that because the pandemic is emotional, and we’re all living it, breathing it, dealing/coping with it, so it’s a challenge to maintain objectivity because the topic hits so close to home. This project isn’t history to us; it’s reality.
I’ve found it easier to maintain objectivity in my previous historical research because there hasn’t been that real, raw emotional aspect. That’s not to say that I haven’t had inherent biases, but they’re not the same as living through the COVID-19 pandemic, delving into social media posts, for instance, that stand in stark contrast to your own beliefs, and detaching enough emotionally to say, “Yes, let’s reach out to this organization and see if they’ll contribute to our project.”
But I’ve had to push my boundaries, put on my historian hat, and objectify current affairs as they pertain to religion and the pandemic. Now that I’ve spent a couple of months deep in our collections, I find myself talking regularly about things that I’ve read and videos that I’ve watched, as well as thinking about specific online services that have struck a cord. I’ve been really grateful for the new perspective, quite honestly, on everything that’s going on right now – it’s chaos! There’s no way around it, so it’s been a refreshing distraction to delve into how religious groups are coping, adapting, communicating, loving, fighting, and so forth. The project is wildly emotional, immensely important, and profoundly innovative.
What were your initial expectations? Have these expectations changed now that you are half-way through? How? Why?
Lincoln provided a solid roadmap for the semester from the get-go, so I feel like my initial expectations have aligned well with the actual work I’ve been doing with Bridget. However, this roadmap’s been fluid, so we’ve adjusted it as we go, checking in weekly as a team and tweaking activities and priorities accordingly.
There are a couple of new activities/aspects that weren’t initially on my radar but that have taken shape as the semester’s progressed:
- Social media: I haven’t used social media in over a decade, so when I say this is all new to me, I very much mean it. But Bridget is a complete social media guru, so I’ve been soaking in as much as I can from her expertise and taking notes on her tactics. I’m actually hoping to leverage some of her insight with a local historical institution with whom I work and research.
- Interpretive exhibit/capstone: I wasn’t expecting to be so moved this semester, but we’ve explored some emotionally deep and uncomfortably provocative items. I’m really excited for our capstone, which is to create an interpretive exhibit for the project. Not only will it allow us to stretch our digital know-how, but it’ll be a way to synthesize a topic that resonates with us. My plan is to look at the lack of social connectivity and how it’s fed into the idea of disaster fatigue, where you essentially become desensitized to the sadness because there’s simply too much to process. I’m inspired and am hoping that this inspiration translates well in the digital arena.
