Evidence

I didn't really expect my panel presentation today to incite that much discussion but where it went was really interesting. The idea that historical events don't inherently have meaning and the meaning is only created through a constructed narrative is interesting -- there are all these searches for the one perfect thing to describe an event but we have to accept that it's never going to happen.

The Zapruder film is one example -- you'd think a film of the event would lay questions to rest but it just adds to speculation. People extrapolate, especially when the footage itself is blurry like it is in the Zapruder film. People come up with a narrative and incorporate certain pieces of evidence as they see fit, pushing the rest to the side. 

The Nicholas Branch parts of Libra seemed to me a little out of place in the rest of the book but by themselves I liked them. The amount of evidence for the JFK assassination, or for that matter, most fairly recent historical events, is overwhelming. It used to bother me a lot, that I would never know the absolute truth about an event -- even with all the newspapers and summaries I read, they're all leaving something out. This class has changed my ideas on that -- now I realize that a narrative is necessary.  The books we read in this class were really interesting and I came to appreciate the way the authors play around with history.