Seniors Present Work at Project Fair

“My Senior Project is using traditional British baking as a lens to examine industrialism, slavery and European colonialism. I’ve been doing this by baking desserts from different time periods, and then researching specifc ingredients. To be honest, I was initially inspired by binge-watching all of ‘The Great British Baking Show’ on Netfix, but the project has grown a lot since then. I’ve learned a lot of really interesting facts about food, like how the banana industry has been responsible for the overthrow of governments around the world, or how cacao beans used to be used as currency.”

Jenn Horkovich '18

Surprisingly enough, my biggest challenge was having too much information which was surprising. I had roughly 60 pages of notes on three tribes and I realized that a course wasn’t as benefcial as it should be. Also, in researching, especially modern Native people, I was struck by the horrors of it all and it was extremely difficult to read. The big thing was realizing that the Iroquois have the oldest democracy and constitution in existence and our Constitution and democracy are based off of theirs except minus women in power. In addition, sexual assault and traffcking are horrendous on reservations - there’s no database for trafficked Native women and their twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as any other race. Also the poverty rates and death rates by diseases people don’t really die from here such as 500% more likely to die from tuberculosis. It’s honestly crazy. I do recommend looking up Adam Ruins Everything Season 2 Episode 18 “The First Factsgiving.” It covers some very common societal misconceptions and American mythology. It’s online. I also plan to go to a Hopkins History Department meeting to try and add my project into the Hopkins curriculum.”

“For my Senior Project, I am writing two episodes of a TV show I have entitled Taking Back the House. Taking Back the House is a reimagining of ‘The West Wing’, a political TV show from the early 2000s that I greatly admire, if the West Wing occurred in 2018. Blending characters from the original as well as characters of my own creation, I have taken on hot button issues such as gun control, abortion, and national security through the lens of TV drama. My goal was to expand what I learned last year in Writing for Stage and Screen (a class I would highly recommend!) and apply it to a genre that interests me personally.

I also wanted to fnd a space to advance political debate, and really listen to and understand arguments from different perspectives. The really challenging thing about a writing-based project is how much time you have to set aside for it. Writing can’t necessary fit into a neat block of time, so I always had to schedule myself hours and hours to just sit down and let the words fow. The hardest thing for me is allowing people to read my work, especially out loud. To me, hearing my work out loud is always weird and embarrassing, but it’s necessary for screenwriting because you have to test out the ease with which someone can read the lines. There’s something very personal about creative writing, so it does take a lot of courage to share it with an audience.”

Libby Gardner '18