Higher Education's Silences: Teaching and Curating Public History Projects

• In Event: 34.042 - Collaborative Public History: Engaging the Public Through Multimodal Mechanisms and Methodologies

Abstract

This paper analyzes an interdisciplinary public history course on the silenced histories of an industrial-era college which, over the last 70 years, has been a predominantly white institution in a historically Black and Latino community. Through disciplinary lenses, such as social and urban history, cultural landscape theory, and historic preservation, interdisciplinary student teams research, design and curate public history projects exploring institutional silences across the 20th century. The projects-- based on oral histories, historical artifacts and landscapes, and archival texts-- employ multi-media mechanisms to communicate with the broader public. Students may share their projects digitally, three-dimensionally, or through embodied experiences such as performance or chalking on public pavement. The presentation will be interactive as participants participate in a critique of project proposals and projects.

Author

• Heather Lewis, Pratt Institute