{"id":155,"date":"2025-11-09T17:53:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/?p=155"},"modified":"2025-11-09T17:53:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:53:16","slug":"shaping-perception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/shaping-perception\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaping Perception"},"content":{"rendered":"

Freya Stark is the only one of the spies that we\u2019ve studied that has had the ability to truly tell her own story. This is mainly because of the fact she didn\u2019t die a tragic, untimely death like Bell, Eberhardt, and Lawrence. For both Eberhardt and Bell, their collections of letters were compiled by loved ones or family members (Florence Bell for Bell, and Victor Barrucand for Eberhardt). Since both of the women were dead, they did not have control over the choice or parts of letters that were selected for their books. Therefore, they were unable to control their own narratives. The same can not be said for Stark. In Beyond Euphrates<\/em>, a story told through selected diary entries and letters, Stark picks and chooses what she wants to be read and seen by her audience. Furthermore, she comments on each of these excerpts, leading her audience towards a certain thought or belief. She is allowed to write her own story, to control her own narrative (though I\u2019m sure others have many critiques of her (I know we have\u2026)).<\/p>\n

This follows the concept of \u201chistory is written by the victors\u201d. While Stark is not necessarily a victor, she conquered not dying too young like her peers. It gave her the power to shape her public persona. Stark isn\u2019t the only person or group of people to do it. After the Civil War, the Daughter of the Confederacy rewrote the textbooks to favor the Southern perspective (or rid them of any wrongdoing) that are still used today. Even though the women were unable to vote or had any \u201cpower\u201d, they shaped the education systems in the south for hundreds of years. They changed the perception of the decisions made about slavery and other controversies during the Civil War by those in power in the South to be more favorable.<\/p>\n

This power to shape your history or perception continues to influence the political scene today. As the government bans books, censors topics in higher ed, and defunds important research it is attempting to rewrite our history. We are allowing those in power to change our perception of reality and their view on history is becoming the accepted view. Trump forcing the Smithsonian to remove any exhibit or piece that would put the United States in a bad light is a prime example of reshaping the perception of the US. In allowing this, we are actively seeing our history be changed.<\/p>\n

Freya Stark may have been one woman, but her continued legacy is a result of her ability to maintain control over how others perceive her. This idea is applicable to a wide range of situations, from the Civil War to current politics and we need to be aware of its power.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freya Stark is the only one of the spies that we\u2019ve studied that has had the ability to truly tell her own story. This is mainly because of the fact she didn\u2019t die a tragic, untimely death like Bell, Eberhardt, and Lawrence. For both Eberhardt and Bell, their collections of letters were compiled by loved … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Shaping Perception”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9,14,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deception","category-gender","category-imperialism","category-self-and-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}