"Closure"?

"Meaning"?

"Final comments"?

Who are we kidding?

If the history of the Jefferson-Hemings controversy has taught us anything, it's that there has always been a surprise around the corner. If we had lived at any of several past stages of the controversy, we would have thought that it was over.

When Jefferson died, who could have foreseen Clotel stirring the dirt? What were the chances that aged Madison Hemings would be interviewed in the boondocks of Ohio after Ellen Randolph Coolidge folded her arms and closed her case? Who knew that a Civil Rights revolution would unearth the controversy coffin, prematurely buried? What design, if design govern in a thing so small, accounts for Annette Gordon-Reed's schoolgirl crush on Jefferson? Did Dumas Malone see Fawn Brodie coming out of left field? Did anybody imagine Jefferson and Hemings a unit in "DNA 101"? What if Tina Andrews hadn't been fired by a corporation without a conscience?

So, what surprise may be around the corner? Can Hyland, Barton, and Turner derail the Gordon-Reed steamroller? Is there something up science's other sleeve? Will Sally's memento-laced casket be found under a Charlottesville parking lot? Will the tantalizing blank in Edmund Bacon's memoir be filled? Will the Woodsons throw in the towel and turn coat? Will historians refurbish Callender's reputation? What angle is some screenwriter right now considering -- James Hemings starring in a spin-off show of his own? Did Randolph Jefferson have a (lurid) diary? Will there be a monument to Sally on Mulberry Row? Will the Monticello Association undergo a palace revolt? Who or what will be the next turning point?

In short, what will episode 17 be about? We invite your speculations, your fantasies, your desires.

Finally, let's say the obvious. This miniseries about the construction of history is itself a construction of history, a construction, to be sure, with aspirations to objectivity but not immune to subjectivity, and, simultaneously, a miniseries designed to make education entertaining and shaped to suggest conclusion, closure, finality.

So we need to look in the rear-view mirror. This construction should be de-constructed. What do you think about the way the miniseries was organized? Was the controlling consciousness objective? Did it allow, did it encourage a variety of viewpoints? Did it push an agenda? Did it play fair? Was it bitten by bias? Did it foster critical thinking? Did it violate "history" for dramatic purposes? Did it indulge unfounded interpretation? What other ways could it have been organized? Hey, what would YOUR miniseries look like?

And so we invite you to "talk back" on these two issues -- the nature of an episode 17 and the quality of the historical education enacted in this project. Send thoughtful one-paragraph contributions for possible inclusion in a final forum on this page to Edward J. Gallagher at ejg1@lehigh.edu.