Reading about the “Last American Pirate” was very fun! I scrolled past the first blog post, but unfortunately I read the Wikipedia article and some of the YouTube comments, which spoiled everything for me, but I completely bought it before that.
I loved reading the reflections of Mills Kelly, the professor who taught the class. At first I found myself considering ways in which other academics could object to his methods, but after taking in everything I feel it would be pretty hard to brush off this project entirely. It made me consider just how seriously we take the written word sometimes. I agree with Patrick Murray-John, one of the folks who commented on Kelly’s blog, that it was unsettling in a good way. I’m sure all of us have read something in a book or article that has totally shocked or surprised us, but we don’t really question it if there is a citation, or if the author has some credentials. Now, most of the time information will be correct. But this reminded me to always ask questions, look at sources, and verify information when possible. This was a great exercise.