I’m currently pondering two ideas for a possible project:
1) As a digital project I’m considering using the records contained at the AU archives and my own documents I’ve gathered on research trips to the Kennedy Library in Boston to create an online database/display related to President Kennedy’s now famous commencement address that he gave at AU in June 1962. It could be a website that uses key primary documents to show the evolution of Kennedy’s thinking, tracing how this speech came together. This June marks the 50th anniversary of the address, so this would be a timely project that might garner some wider interest.
2) If I decide to do a print project instead I’d like to do a comparative historical study of the introduction of new communications technologies throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and how people reacted to and talked about them. For example, comparing the telegraph, telephone, and internet in their early stages, did people express similar concerns about these nascent technologies in their respective ages? How does what people thought these technologies would do for society reconcile with how they actually developed and were used.