\u201cI said, \u2018how about I send you her article? Just take a look and tell me it\u2019s not better than what many faculty are doing.\u2019\u201d Fehler remembers. \u201cShe got accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n
And just like that, Hartman found herself alongside Fehler inside the Provinciaal Hof (Provincial Palace) in Bruges, Belgium, preparing to present \u201cThese Troublesome and Distracted Times: Prodigies, Prognostication and Christian Astrology During the English Revolution.\u201d About 900 people would share their work during the\u00a0massive three-day conference<\/a>, and exactly one of them was an undergraduate college student: Hartman.<\/p>\n It was a remarkable accomplishment. It was also remarkably nerve-racking, exacerbated by the towering Provinciaal Hof, which even visitbruges.eu describes as \u201cimposing.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Abigail Hartman ’17 stands in front of the St. Andrews, Scotland, skyline, where she is pursuing her Ph.D. in late medieval history at the University of St. Andrews.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cIf it could possibly be any more intimidating being the only undergrad, that building made it so,\u201d Hartman said with a laugh. \u201cIt was definitely a formative experience being able to see all these established academics, getting to analyze their papers and hear the research that was going on, but there\u2019s always going to be imposter syndrome. And even with an experience like that it\u2019s difficult to shake the feeling that \u2018I don\u2019t belong here,\u2019 which is when you really need someone like Dr. Fehler along.\u201d<\/p>\n Hartman spoke from the University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland, where she\u2019s well on her way to becoming one of those established academics as she works on her Ph.D. in late medieval history. Then again, a persuasive argument could be made the Greenville native is already an established academic after the December publication of \u201cSigns and Wonders in Britain\u2019s Age of Revolution: A Sourcebook,\u201d<\/a> which she co-authored with Fehler.<\/p>\n The book pulled together a variety of obscure primary sources, with a unique focus on supernatural tales like fantastical battles in the sky and witches that were commonly shared as fact at the time but often excluded today from historical texts describing events from the period. “Signs and Wonders” was the culmination of two summers of research by Hartman under Fehler, the first funded by South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities and the second by The Furman Advantage<\/a>, with the bulk of the writing taking place during Hartman\u2019s senior year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best parts are written by her, actually. She\u2019s a much better writer than I am,\u201d Fehler, who is already using the sourcebook in his classes, said.<\/p>\n This wasn’t the outcome Fehler expected when he saw promise in Hartman as a freshman and asked if she\u2019d be interested in far less ambitious research exploring whether or not it would be realistic to write a better sourcebook than the one he was using. Eventually.<\/p>\n \u201cI really was not expecting anything \u2026 beyond being able to lay the groundwork for a future project,\u201d he said. \u201cBy the end of the summer she had helped me frame a sourcebook project.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStarting out in 2014, it was very big and nebulous, and I was just helping do a little bit of research into a database for something that might help some classes. From the beginning, Dr. Fehler said something about a sourcebook, but I didn\u2019t pay attention to that honestly,\u201d Hartman said. \u201cIt seemed too good to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n But Hartman\u2019s passion for history couldn\u2019t be contained.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of times when I get onto a research project and I spend time with it, I start to get obsessed. In this one, the subject matter is just totally fascinating to me,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re things I had never really considered before. It was something I didn\u2019t want to let go, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n Hartman came into Furman intent on participating in undergraduate research, and finding a mentor in Fehler made the experience as fulfilling as she could have imagined.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the wonderful things about Dr. Fehler is he is always available. It\u2019s kind of a joke among college students that you agonize over an email to your professor, and you get a one-line response. That is not Dr. Fehler. You email him and you get a tome back,\u201d she said. \u201cIn my research, he put a whole lot of faith in me that I didn\u2019t necessarily have in myself at the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n That opportunity to chart her own course while knowing Fehler would never allow her to get lost led Hartman, who unsurprisingly majored in history, to the realization she wanted to be a college professor herself one day.<\/p>\n \u201cStarting out the research process was quite scary. I thought I wanted more intervention than he gave, but in the end that was what was needed. I needed to be allowed to figure things out instead of being spoon fed,\u201d she said. \u201cI always really appreciated that he allowed me to make the project my own. I wasn\u2019t just a guinea pig for his research ideas \u2026 If you have the opportunity to do undergraduate research, take it. It really puts you ahead of your peers.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Abigail](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Hartman.jpg\")