Two Projects--Three Weeks--Time to Panic?

I write you all from one of those lonely library cubicles that I hate because they inevitably produce LOTS of productivity because there is little else to focus on but the work in front of you...

I was very productive tonight on my individual project. I think I want the focus of the lectures to be one of the issues brought up by R. B. Bernstein's The Founding Fathers Reconsidered.  He has a chapter entitled "Achievements and Challenges" and one of them is "The Constitution as Exploding Cigar."  The central idea in this chapter is as follows:



“As Jefferson complained in 1816, later generations have ascribed to the founding fathers ‘a wisdom more than human and have treated their handiwork with ‘sanctimonious reverence.’ This attitude disregards one central fact that Jefferson recognized and stressed—that the Constitution was and remains a human artifact that human beings made and that human beings must make work, and one consequence of its being a human artifact is that it includes imperfections. Some of these imperfections were deliberate compromises…Other imperfections were the product of fear…Still others were the result of the founding fathers being subject to the same human frailties that bedevil all human beings in all societies—lapses of creativity or imagination and failures of care or foresight…” (108)

Basically the idea is that the founders were human so the Constitution is filled with their mistakes or errors. I think an interesting discussion forum would be the errors of the founders...something similar to this conception is another idea voiced in Bernstein's conclusion:

“America’s contentious relationship with the founding fathers has unfolded within and been shaped by a pair of linked questions. How much do the founding fathers resemble us and how much do they differ from us? To what extend are we obliged to keep faith with them or set them aside in the face of changing conditions and problems? That the American people still govern themselves under a written constitution framed by the founding fathers, albeit with a series of amendments adopted between the early 1790s and the early 1990s, gives these questions urgency and bite” (168).

I mean isn't this the reason we study these old dead white guys anyway? To understand how to apply their thoughts to ours today and to the current and future products of modern politics?

Safe to say, I had much better luck today in the library thanks to Dr. K's helpful advice. I now have an extremely heavy bookbag and lots of reading to do, but feel a bit better about the direction of the project.

As for our class project. I (and perhaps foolishly) agreed to be the overall editor/reviser of our I-496 museum exhibit proposal. I generally enjoy this kind of work and hope I will find this endeavor just as enjoyable.

I'm getting a bit overwhelmed (total understatement) with the idea that there is so little time left and I have so much to do in this class. I'm hoping as I keep working that things will fall into place like they always magically seem to do...