The State of Public History in the Washington Area

1978 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Trask
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
The State

Some Reflections on Public History in Canada Today

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Dean ◽  
John C. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
The State ◽  
Universities And Colleges ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Research Agendas

AbstractThis article offers a reflection on the state of public history in Canada today. The authors focus on four particularly significant and related developments: the growth of the field within universities and colleges; the ways in which public history has helped re-shape research agendas; the influence of public history work outside academia; and Canada’s role in the ongoing process of what has been dubbed ‘the internationalization’ of public history. These developments reveal an intellectually rigorous, politically aware, and socially engaged public history that challenges boundaries in exciting and productive ways. The authors offer links so readers can explore recent controversies, issues, and debates in Canadian public history.

Pulling from Outside, Pushing from Inside

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 264-292
Author(s):  
Anne Mitchell Whisnant ◽  
Marla R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Public History ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Professional Associations ◽  
The State ◽  
National Council ◽  
American Historical Association ◽  
Park Service

In 2011, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) released Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service, a multi-year team-authored study commissioned by the NPS Chief Historian. The study offered twelve findings assessing strengths and challenges facing history practice across the agency, and made almost one hundred recommendations that aimed to support that work. The report’s fifth anniversary offers an opportunity to review how Imperiled Promise’s proposals have fared. We find that, although the report has been positively received and many of its perspectives and specific suggestions embraced, the persistent structural issues it identified continue to hinder full realization of the parks’ promise. The OAH, National Council on Public History (NCPH), American Historical Association (AHA), and other professional associations, as well as their members, must continue to advocate strongly and consistently for NPS history.

In the Service of the State

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ashton ◽  
Kresno Brahmantyo ◽  
Jaya Keaney
Keyword(s):  
Public History ◽  
The State ◽  
New Order ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Emotional Bonds ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Monuments And Memorials

Public history in Indonesia today faces considerable challenges. Despite the downfall of the New Order regime, its nationalist history program and agenda remain powerful in the culture. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the construction and use of authorized monuments and memorials. Monuments and memorials are evocative and affective; they promote and perpetuate emotional bonds. Drawing on familiar materials and symbols, they are aimed at particular audiences in specific contexts, and they are intended to be efficacious. As objects with the potential to affect communities or whole societies, they are also contestable. This chapter draws on what are arguably two of the most prominent public monuments and memorials in Indonesia—the Sacred Pancasila Monument (Monumen Pancasila Sakti), which speaks primarily to an internal or domestic audience, and the memorial to the victims of the Bali bombing in Kuta, which is primarily aimed at an international audience.

The Origin of Modern Public History in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 252-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
General Population ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Public History ◽  
The State ◽  
Critical Survey

Abstract This article tracks the origin of modern public history in China. Through a critical survey of the landscape, the article focuses on why public history has such a widespread appeal among ordinary Chinese, and how it is used for social cohesion and identity building to mobilize a general population. The author argues that public history has flourished in the last two decades alongside a deteriorating notion of national identity unified by the state; the genesis of this can be traced back to the turn of the twentieth century. Three propositions are suggested for further developing public history in China, namely writing differently, a broader and more liberal understanding of history, and an emphasis on rigour.

Private Sector Involvement in Public History Production in South Africa: The Sunday Times Heritage Project

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Marschall
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Public History ◽  
The State ◽  
Private Initiative ◽  
Identity Discourses ◽  
Private Sector Involvement

Abstract:This article investigates issues of identity construction and public memorialization in postapartheid South Africa. It focuses on the Sunday Times Heritage Project, a unique private-sector initiative that involved the installation of thirty memorials throughout the country between 2006 and 2008. The article discusses the conceptualization and implementation of the project, pointing out important differences between this private initiative and the state-directed heritage effort. By interrogating the nexus between race, space, and memory in the construction of memorials, the article highlights the significance of placement and location in the formation of new identity discourses.

scholarly journals Asserting Control Over [A]Historical Consciousness: How the Settler State Perpetuates Indigenous Homelessness

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Eileen Mark
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Public History ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
The State ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
Colonial Oppression ◽  
Research Analysis

The following historiographical analysis briefly outlines the legacy of Indigenous encampments on the Aboriginal Burial Ground in Rossdale Flats in what is colonially known as Edmonton, AB. Specifically, the following analysis documents the grassroots activism of prayer camp pekiwewin in the final months of 2020. Beginning with a brief overview of the encampment site, this research analysis critiques the ongoing colonialism in urban settler cities which regulate how peoples can operate in relation with the land. The methodologies of the state explored herein pertain to the function of public history, ongoing settler colonial oppression, and the criminalization of homelessness as factors that reproduce inequalities.   Keywords: settler colonial, public history, homelessness, Indigenous Peoples, urban cities

A Life in the Field: Henry Glassie and the Study of Material Culture

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Glassie ◽  
Barbara Truesdell
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Public History ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
The State

Abstract Henry Glassie discusses the early life influences that led him to folklore as his vocation. He describes his formal education; his mentoring by Fred B. Kniffen, whose training shaped Glassie's study of material culture; his job as the state folklorist of Pennsylvania; and his participation in the evolution of public sector folklore. Glassie also describes the centrality of fieldwork to his career, his writings, his teaching, his museum work, and to the folklore enterprise. Finally, he evaluates the earmarks of a successful public history venture and the influence of his work's intention to democratize history.

scholarly journals Places of the Heart: Memorials, Public History and the State in Australia Since 1960

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ashton ◽  
Paula Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Public Places ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Over Time

Memorials as a form of public history allow us to chart the complex interactions and negotiations between officially endorsed historical narratives, public memorials, privately sponsored memorials in public spaces and new histories. As Ludmilla Jordanova reminds us, ‘the state… lies at the heart of public history’. And this is evident in the public process of memorialisation. At one level, the state endorses certain narratives within which communities and organisations need to operate if they are to be officially part of the national story and its regional and local variants. Ultimate endorsement for memorials includes listings on heritage registers. Controls over the erection of memorials vary from official policies to process for the issue of permits for their construction in public places or their removal. The state, however, is not monolithic. Permissible pasts evolve over time given shifts in power and social and cultural change. This involves both ‘retrospective commemoration’ and ‘participatory memorialisation’. The presence and power of the past in peoples’ lives, too, means in practice that memorial landscapes will reflect, in truly democratic societies, the values, experiences and dominant concerns of its citizens.

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