Faculty of ArtHISTORY 595B 101 2021W INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC HISTORY
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This course explores the creation and presentation of historical narratives for non-academic publics; that is, outside of the usual intra-academic communication of scholarly articles, monographs and conference papers. Public history can take a wide variety of forms, including museum exhibits, heritage houses and re-enactments, film, fiction, and more. We will use as our “test-cases” both an older type of public history—the museum exhibit—and a newer form, the podcast. You will be introduced (it’s only one semester!) to the theory and practice of public history by the discussion of readings, by visiting and critiquing several museums, by listening to podcasts and critiquing them, and by the creation of both a public-facing reference guide and a public history project. Among the topics we will explore are: deciding on what should be collected and preserved, and what should be presented; presenting “difficult knowledge”; evaluating how material considerations (size of museum and its budget, budget allocations for a podcast) and the mediation of professionals affect public history; “shared authority” in theory and practice; the challenges and rewards for university-based historians who wish to engage in public history projects.
The students will meet professionals who work in various capacities in museums, as well as a graduate History student with experience in both public history and podcasting. In a professional development workshop on “career directions and resources,” you will be offered some guidance on using and marketing your skills outside the walls of the academy.
To provide practical experience, we will be working on projects with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
Acknowledgement
UBC’s Point Grey Campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam people, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, you will have:
- Developed your skills in producing history for a wide and non-academic audience;
- Improved your critical skills by examining, summarizing and translating the historiography of your topic;
- Improved your communication skills, both in writing and orally;
- Increased your experience working with groups;
- Increased your experience working with professionals in the area.
Format of course
Visits to museums
As one feature of the “hands-on” nature of this course, the plan is to have off-site visits on at three occasions, twice to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, and once to the BC Sports Hall of Fame. The museums are governed by the proof of vaccination rules that differ from the rules for post-secondary institutions, and we will have to abide by them for those visits.
Special support
UBC Students: Your applied research projects are facilitated by the UBC Arts Amplifier, and funded by CEWIL Canada and the UBC Public Humanities Hub.** A $200 award will be provided to students who complete and pass the assignment and the course. It is meant to help you with some of the costs related to the course, e.g. taxi fares to the museums, child care, etc. It will be distributed by UBC Enrollment Services as a non-academic award, and will first be applied to any outstanding tuition. If students do not have any outstanding tuition due, they will receive their award as either a cheque or direct deposit (called “Special University of British Columbia Award”), depending on the preferences they have indicated in the SSC, by January 2022 at the latest.
Visiting students: Arrangements are under discussion (September 12th).
For the workshops and visits to museums, we are also receiving support from the public history initiatives of UBC’s Department of History.
**FYI: Students who wish to pursue relevant paid work are encouraged to visit amplifier.arts.ubc.ca.
REQUIREMENTS
One group project: Value: 15%
Deadline: October 15, 11:59 pm, submit to canvas.
Students will divide into groups of two. Each group will complete a research guide following the style of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, on one of the following topics:
Diaries
Photography
Propaganda
Liberation
From the VHEC Site:
“Research guides are an introduction to a particular topic or theme. They describe primary and secondary sources from the archives, library, museum and Holocaust testimony collections as well as recommended resources from other organizations related to that topic or theme……
In this assignment, you will learn about creating public-facing information as well as learn the holdings of the VHEC on your specific topic, which will also be the topic of your personal public history project, the creation of a thematic gallery or a podcast.
You will not need to offer a design for the research guide, but rather collect and organize the materials so that they can be placed in the VHEC’s design shell. The document you produce with the relevant information should be submitted to CANVAS.
One individual project (total: 65%)
Podcast/exhibit
Draft, 10%
The draft should be quite close to the final version, so that you can benefit from the critiques.
Drafts due on canvas November 11th, 11:59pm
Final version, 35 %
Final projects due on Canvas, November 28, 11:59pm
Reflection essay, 20% (1500-2000 words)
Essay due on Canvas Monday December 13, 11:59 pm
Each student will have a personal public history project to emerge from the work on the research guide. From each of the groups, one student will work on an exhibit on the topic, and the other will do a podcast.
The exhibit will be created along the lines of the thematic galleries of the VHEC, (specifically Internment in Canada) but will choose about fifteen items from the collection of the VHEC, and collectively the items should engage issues in both the scholarship on the subject and the representation of the issue in other examples of exhibits of a similar source. There should be a narrative arc that connects these, while conforming to the limited number of words in these galleries. The engagements with the scholarship and other public histories may be somewhat implicit in the narrative of the gallery and the descriptions of the items themselves, but you will have to make them explicit in an explanatory footnote to each of the items of the gallery. You should also emphasize why the materials at VHEC deserve special attention. Note: Writing concisely is difficult, and will take time.
You will not need to create a design for the gallery, but rather collect and organize the materials so that they can be placed in the VHEC’s design shell.
The podcast will be expected to be about fifteen minutes, and the student should also create accompanying program notes. The student will submit the recorded podcast, a script of the podcast, and will annotate the script to address the same issues as for the galleries; that is, how your podcast engages both the scholarship on the subject and the representation of the issue in other examples already-existing podcasts. You should also emphasize why the materials at VHEC deserve special attention.
In the reflection essay, you will return to the central questions of the course. Based on your experiences, what are the rewards and challenges to academic historians when they work on public history projects? Which readings, or presentations, helped you in completing the necessary tasks and in deepening your understanding of the more abstract issues? What did you discover that was not well-presented—if at all—in the readings and discussions? This essay should include the usual scholarly apparatus, i.e. footnotes and bibliography. Please use Chicago Manual of Style, Notes and Bibliography (not author-date)
One short critique (app. 250 words) Total 10%
Due on canvas, Sunday November 14th, 11:59pm
Each student will be assigned to write a critique of the draft of a colleague working in the same medium (e.g. podcaster on propaganda will critique the podcaster on photography).You might consider the following questions: Is the narrative created clearly presented? Has the author addressed, either implicitly or explicitly, the historiographic issues on the topic? What aspects of the medium have been effectively used, and which are perhaps underdeveloped? Are there particular segments that are especially strong, and others less so?
Participation: 10%
All students should come to class prepared to discuss the relevant readings, the museums visited and the assigned podcasts.
READINGS
All the readings are available online on the LOCR page for the course with the exception of some of the linked pages in the syllabus, below. The readings are heavier in the early part of the course, but are rarely more than eighty pages a week.
Week one: September 13 Introduction to public history
National Council on Public History. What is public history?.
Townsend, Robert B. “In conversation with Ian Tyrrell” Perspectives on History (May, 2006).
Karp, Ivan. “Public scholarship as a vocation.” Arts & Humanities in Higher Education.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 11,3 (2012): 285-299.
Conard, Rebecca. “The pragmatic roots of public history education in the United States.” The Public Historian 37, no. 1 (2015): 105-120.
Dickey, Jennifer. “Public history and the big tent theory.” The Public Historian 40, no. 4 (2018): 37-41.
Dean, David and John C. Walsh. “Some reflections on public history in Canada today.” Intersections 2,2 (2019): 34-5.
Week two: September 20: Museums
Meet at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 950 west 41st, basement level, in the Jewish Community Centre. Hour one: Discussion of readings. Remainder: Meet with VHEC staff, including Ms. Nina Krieger, Executive Director; Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar, Education Director and curator; Ms. Caitlin Donaldson, Collections Registrar; Ms. Shyla Seller, Archivist.
Abt, Jeffrey. “The Origins of the Public Museum.” In Sharon Macdonald, ed. A Companion to Museum Studies. Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. Pp. 115-134.
Conn, Steven. “Introduction: thinking about museums.” In Do museums still need objects? University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Pp. 1-19.
Lindauer, Margaret. “The critical museum visitor.” In Janet Marstine, ed. New museum theory and practice: an introduction. Blackwell, 2006. Pp. 203-225.
Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Annual report, 2020, browse to note mission, activities, funding.
Week three: September 27: Museums, objects, mediators
Smithsonian Exhibits, Guide to exhibit development
Dudley, Sandra H. “The power of things: agency and potentiality in the work of historical artifacts.” In David Dean, ed. A companion to public history. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2018. Pp. 187-200.
Links, Petra et al. “Who holds the key to Holocaust-related sources? Authorship as subjectivity in finding aids.” Holocaust Studies 22:1 (2016): 21-43.
Jimerson, Randall C. “Ethical concerns for archivists.” The Public Historian 28, 1 (Winter, 2006): 87-92.
Roberts, Toni. ”Factors affecting the role of designers in interpretation projects.” Museum Management and Curatorship 30:5 (2015): 379-393.
Week four: October 4th; Podcasting (including ‘How to” workshop led by Ms. Georgia Twiss, graduate student, UBC HISTORY, and one of the hosts of The Broadscast )
McGrath, Jim. Podcasts and public history, HISTORY@WORK
Berry, Richard. “Part of the establishment: Reflecting on 10 years of podcasting as an audio medium.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 22, no. 6 (2016): 661-671.
Fox, Kim et al. “A curriculum for blackness: podcasts as discursive cultural guides, 2010-2020.” Journal of radio & audio media 27,2 (2020): 298-318.
Zohrob, D. (2019, February 20). Here’s why we’re entering the Golden Age of podcasts, in 10 graphs.
An example:
Bartow, Paul. “Review: Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast about Early American History, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.” The Public Historian 41, no. 3 (08/01/2019): 157-159.
Scan the topics of the podcast: do you agree with Bartow.
Complete for in-class discussion: The critical podcast listener prompt sheet: review episode 201 of Ben Franklin’s world, on Arts, politics and everyday life in early America
Week five: October 11th: NO CLASS
Submit Research Guide to canvas OCT 15th, 11:59 PM
Week six: October 18th A small museum confronts social justice issues: BC Sports Hall of Fame
Meet at the BC Sports Hall of Fame, with visit that pays close attention to the Indigenous Sport Gallery (ISG). Visit includes q&a with curator of museum, Mr. Jason Beck and Chief Lara Mussel Savage of the Skwah First Nation in Chilliwack, who was a key member of the working committee for the ISG (and world champion Ultimate athlete) and Mr. Tewanee Joseph, a celebrated player of lacrosse and contributor to the working group for the gallery.
Reilly, J. “The development of sports in museums.” Journal of the History of Sport 32,15 (2015): 1778-1783.
Hirsch, Marianne. “Surviving images: Holocaust photographs and the work of postmemory.” Yale Journal of Criticism 14,1 (2001): 5-37.
McKee, Taylor and Janice Forsyth. “Witnessing painful pasts; understanding images of sports at Canadian residential schools.” Journal of Sport History 46,2 (2019): 175-188.
Interview with curator Jason Beck
Complete for discussion log after visit: The critical museum goer prompt sheet: review of the ISG.
Week seven: October 25th. A large museum confronts social justice issues: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR)
An online tour (TBA-the museum is closed Mondays) and, during class hours, an online Q&A session with Dr. Travis Tomchuk, CMHR curator of social justice issues in galleries and exhibitions
Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Content Advisory Committee, and Canadian Government EBook Collection. Content Advisory Committee Final Report to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, may 25, 2010. Winnipeg: Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 2010. “Recommendations,” pp. 84-91.
Simon, Roger I. “The terrible gift: Museums and the possibility of hope without consolation.” Museum Management and Curatorship 21, 3 (2006): 187-204.
Lehrer, Erica. “Thinking through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.” American Quarterly 67,4 (2015): 1195-2016.
Dean, Amber and Angela Failler. “ ‘An Amazing Gift’? Memory Entrepreneurship, Settler Colonialism and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.” Memory Studies 14,2 (2021): 451-465.
For the in-class discussion, complete the critical museum goer prompt sheet, to review of the guided tour of the museum. Additional question: After viewing the website materials, do the last two studies “ring true”?
Week eight: November 1sth: Podcasting history; (Including workshop on work-in-progress by Ms. Georgia Twiss)
Salvati, Andrew J. “Podcasting the Past: Hardcore History, Fandom, and DIY Histories.” Journal of Radio & Audio Media, 22:2 (2015): 231-239.
Horrocks, Allison. “Podcasting public history: comparing Throughline and Backstory.” The Public Historian 42,4 (November, 2020): 174-177.
Complete for in-class discussion. The critical podcast listener prompt sheet: a review of
Last Archive podcast: Season two episode three: The inner front.
Week nine: Nov 8th Update on project: One-on-one meetings with instructor
Drafts due on canvas November 11th, 11:59pm
Critiques on canvas, Sunday November 14th, 11:59pm
Week ten: November 15th : Presentations of drafts of projects @VHEC
Meet at the VHEC, with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre Staff
Week eleven: November 22nd Where can we go from here?
“Curatorial dreaming” workshop led by Dr. Shelley Ruth Butler, an anthropologist who developed the practice of curatorial dreaming, and is the co-editor of a book of curatorial dreams. This should be valuable in developing your reflections essay.
High, Steven. “Sharing authority: an introduction.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 43,1 (Winter, 2009) : 12-34.
Butler, Shelley Ruth. “The Practice of Critical Heritage: Curatorial Dreaming as Methodology.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes, Volume 52, 1(Winter/hiver 2018): 280-305
Week twelve: November 29th Career Directions and Resources
Presentations, and discussions; Danielle Barkley, PhD, Graduate Career Educator; UBC Centre for Student Involvement & Care; and Letitia Henville, PhD, Coordinator, Graduate Programs, UBC Arts Co-op, & Project Lead, UBC Arts Amplifier
Final version of public history projects due, November 28, 11:59pm
Week Thirteen: December 6th: Concluding thoughts
Discussion of your “reflections” in-progress
Reflections essay due Monday December 13, 11:59 pm