HIST1700 Introduction to Public History: Theory and Practice

The field of public history has been expanding so rapidly since its inception in the 1970s that even public historians find it difficult to agree on a precise definition for public history. This course adopts a broad definition, which seeks to understand public history as a discipline in which historians practice history with a public audience in mind, and as a medium through which the general public acquire a sense of the past. Major topics examined in this course include museums, heritage, films, public monuments and tourism, etc. Local and global examples are used.

1. Public History: A Changing Discipline
2. Bridging the Gap between Historians and the Public
3. Popular Uses of History
4. Presenting the Past: Museums
5. Power Politics of World Heritage
6. Changing Definitions of Heritage: From Tangible to Intangible
7. Marketing History and Heritage: A Local Perspective
8. Marketing History and Heritage: A Global Perspective
9. History and the Mass Media
10. Projecting History in Public Space: Monuments and Power
11. Public History and Collective Memory
12. Gender and Public History
13. Conclusion: The Future of Public History

TBC

1. Public History: A Changing Discipline

• Cauvin, Thomas. Public History: A Textbook of Practice (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), Ch. 1, “Introduction.”
• Kelley, Robert. “Public History: Its Origins, Nature, and Prospects.” Public Historian1 (Fall 1978), pp. 16-28.

2. Bridging the Gap between Historians and the Public

• Thomas A. Woods, “Museums and the Public: Doing History Together.” Journal of American History (Dec. 1995): 1111-1115.
• Thompson, Paul. The Voice of the Past: Oral History (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

3. Popular Uses of History

• Cauvin, Thomas. Public History: A Textbook of Practice (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), Ch. 3, “Collecting and Preserving People’s Stories. Oral History, Family History, and Everyday Life.”
• Rosenzweig, Roy and David Thelen. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

4. Presenting the Past: Museums

• Carroll, John M. “Displaying the Past to Serve the Present: Museums and Heritage Preservation in Post-Colonial Hong Kong.” Twentieth-Century China 31 (2005), pp. 76-103.
• Linenthal, Edward T & Tom Engelhardt eds. History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996).
• Yoshida, Takashi. From Cultures of War to Cultures of Peace: War and Peace Museums in Japan, China, and South Korea (Portland, Maine: MerwinAsia, 2014).

5. Power Politics of World Heritage

• Logan, William. “States, Governance and the Politics of Culture: World Heritage in Asia.” In Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia (Oxon, Routledge, 2012), pp. 113-128.
• Meskell, L., Liuzza, C., Bertacchini, E. and Saccone, D. “Multilateralism and UNESCO World Heritage: Decision-making, States Parties and Political Processes.” International Journal of Heritage Studies, 21:5 (2015), pp. 423-440.
• Smith, Laurajane. Uses of Heritage (London & New York, Routledge, 2006).

6. Changing Definitions of Heritage: From Tangible to Intangible

• Liu, Tik-sang, ed. Intangible Cultural Heritage and Local Communities in East Asia (Hong Kong: South China Research Center, HKUST, 2011).
• Lowenthal, David. Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (New York: Free Press, 1996).

7. Marketing History and Heritage: A Local Perspective

• Cheung, Sidney C. H. “Remembering through Space: The Politics of Heritage in Hong Kong.” International Journal of Heritage Studies, 9:1 (Mar 2003), pp. 7-26.
• Henderson, Joan. “Heritage, Identity and Tourism in Hong Kong.” International Journal of Heritage Studies, 7: 3 (2001): 219-235.

8. Marketing History and Heritage: A Global Perspective

• Figal, Gerald. Beachheads: War, Peace, and Tourism in Postwar Okinawa (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).
• White, Leanne and Elspeth Frew, eds. Dark Tourism and Place Identity: Managing and Interpreting Dark Places (Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2013).

9. History and the Mass Media

• Carnes, Mark C., ed. Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies (New York: Henry Holt, 1995).
• Rosenstone, Robert A. History on Film, Film on History (New York: Pearson Education Limited 2006).

10. Projecting History in Public Space: Monuments and Power

• Goldman, Natasha. “Israeli Holocaust Memorial Strategies at Yad Vashem: From Silence to Recognition.” Art Journal (Summer 2006), pp. 102–22.
• Hayden, Dolores. The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997).

11. Public History and Collective Memory

• Burke, Peter. “History as Social Memory.” In Varieties of Cultural History (Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 43-59.
• Li, Fei Fei, Robert Sabella & David Liu (eds.) Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), pp. 75-94.
• Winter, Jay, Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006).

12. Gender and Public History

• Levin, Amy K. ed. Gender, Sexuality, and Museums: A Routledge Reader (New York: Routledge, 2010).
• Mayo, Edith P. “Women’s History and Public History: The Museum Connection.” The Public Historian, 5: 2 (Spring 1983), pp. 63-73.
• Smith, Laurajane. “Heritage, Gender and Identity.” In Brian Graham and Peter Howard, eds. The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 159-178.

13. Conclusion: The Future of Public History

• Sayer, Faye. Public History: A Practical Guide (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), “Conclusion.”

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