Faculty Sponsor: Maryam Gooyabadi & Joe Slaughter

William Allen
William is a rising senior from El Dorado, Arkansas majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Data Analysis. Outside of mathematics, William likes to hang out with friends, watch music videos, and play chess in his free time. After Wesleyan, William plans to pursue graduate school in Mathematics with the hopes of becoming a professor.
Abstract: Both firearms and Christianity have been central to how many Americans conceptualize their national identity, but the relationship between the two has not been well-studied. To understand this relationship requires a principled, in-depth analysis of historical Christian periodicals to gauge how firearm discourse among Christian communities has changed over time. In this project, we apply natural language processing techniques and large language model interpretations to examine the presence and context of firearms-related language in Christian publications spanning the past two centuries. By leveraging these tools, we approach the subject with greater objectivity, and allow for a large-scale, exhaustive analysis of these historical documents. This poster focuses on the methodological framework behind such an approach, illustrating how data-driven techniques can be used to explore historical questions.