Phase 2--Social Proof

Here is a list of a few people that I have attempted to contact or have talked to about my project recently:

• The Humanities assistant in the library.
• I figured I would go up and talk to someone who knew a little more about Shakespeare than I did, and the library seemed like a good place to start. I talked to the assistant at the desk, and it turned out that he was a huge Shakespeare enthusiast (I forget what his name was). We talked for a while about Christians in the Renaissance and whether Shakespeare himself was a Christian or not, and if he was, what type of Christian. He referred me to a book called Shakespeare's Christianity: The Protestant and Catholic Poetics of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet. I'm using this book as one of my scholarly sources. 
• Robert Means in the library.
• I emailed him about my topic and he wrote me back, saying that I had an interesting topic. He suggested that I include Hamlet in my research because the play shows that Christians don't just have conflicts with people of other faiths, but they actually don't even trust other Christians who have only slightly different beliefs (in Hamlet, the younger Hamlet has Protestant-like beliefs while dead Hamlet is a traditional Catholic). 
• Ms. Lipson's class members on "Shakespeak."
• Shakespeak is an educational blog created by a teacher named Ms. Lipson. I looked at a few of the posts some of the students wrote. One of them was really interesting because it had a lot about the history of the Moors.  Apparently the Christians took over the Moors' kingdoms in Africa in the Middle Ages and forced them and the Jews to convert to Christianity. Some of the other posts talked about Christianity and stuff. It was good to see that students somewhere else were looking at the same kinds of ideas in Shakespeare's plays that I was. I posted a few comments, but there was no way to contact any of them by email, so we'll see what happens.
• http://shakespeak.edublogs.org/2009/09/17/moors/
• Emily's "My Very Own Secret Shakespeare."
• This girl named Emily (last name unknown) wrote an interesting post on her blog, comparing Antonio to Christ. She wrote all about how he was so generous, such a loyal friend. He exemplified the selfless, empathetic, and merciful qualities that Christ himself had. I agree that Antonio was those things--to Bassanio, his close Christian friend. However, I found it kind of ridiculous that she only talked about how he treated his friend and other members of his own faith while completely ignoring the fact that Shylock pretty much got the shaft because the Christians in the play could barely tolerate him, simply because he was a Jew. He ends up with basically nothing by the end of the play, not even his religion, because they forced him to convert to Christianity. I wrote Emily a comment on this post, explaining that perhaps she was forgetting the most important side to the story: that Christians back then (and even some today) treat people like scum because they have different beliefs than they do. We'll see if she replies. 
• http://ortonemily232.blogspot.com/2012/01/christianity-in-shakespear.html
• Media Center worker in the library.
• This guy that helped me find the DVD of the performance that I wanted to analyze (I have no clue what his name is) asked me what I wanted it for. I told him that I needed it as part of my research and that I wanted to write about Christian oppression in Shakespeare and how it relates to oppression today. I gave him some examples, and he told me it was a cool idea to see the connections between the past and the future with those issues. So someone thinks my idea is cool.

It was kind of a slow week with social proof. I think I was more concerned with finding reliable scholarly sources than with talking to people about my work. I am still waiting to hear back from a couple people that I emailed last week, but I don't know if anything will come of it.