Experts on Vietnam and Evidence at ZooMX

The History Department closed the last full week of classes with a bang, orchestrating a pair of ZooMX experiences featuring experts from the University of Kansas and Harvard University.
 
First on the docket was an afternoon gathering with Parker graduate and Roy A. Roberts Distinguished History Professor at the University of Kansas Dr. David Farber ’74, who specializes in the 1960s. Farber visited Parker two years ago as part of the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and addressed students and a public audience on the topic.
 
In his ZooMX presentation, Farber shared a truncated history of the impact of Vietnam on the U.S. home front, the antiwar movement and the events that transpired in Chicago in 1968. Students left with a much better understanding of how the American people responded to the Vietnam conflict as well as the short- and long-term effects of Vietnam at home and abroad.
 
Later that week, Dr. Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University The New Yorker staff writer and host of the podcast The Last Archive, joined students, faculty and staff for a ZooMX.
 
Dr. Lepore is a prize-winning professor who teaches classes in evidence, historical methods, humanistic inquiry and American history. She is the author of many award-winning books, including the international bestseller These Truths: A History of the United States. Her next book, IF THEN: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, will be published later this year.
 
In connecting with Parker, Lepore first Zoomed with an 8th grade student book group who had read These Truths and answered questions ranging from how she determined the content to include as well as not to include in her book to her process as an author and her work in general, from how she came up with the names for her chapters to advice to 8th graders and more.
 
Following the book group, more students joined the session, and Lepore answered questions about her recent articles in The New Yorker, her work as a historian at Harvard and her recent experience creating her new podcast The Last Archive which “…traces the history of evidence, proof and knowledge…”
 
Both experiences were successful in helping connect the experience of the classroom with the wider world during this time of remote learning. Many thanks to the efforts of history teachers Andy Bigelow and Stephanie Nishimoto-Lorenzo for going the extra mile and arranging these experiences for our community of teachers and learners.
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