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

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This panel explores the ways that public history’s multi-modal mechanisms and methodologies--exhibition, performances, film, podcasts, websites, oral histories, and archival sources-- are used to connect institutions of learning with local communities and the broader public. Historians and museum practitioners explore public history as a collaborative process in different settings such as university courses, history museums, and university-initiated community research projects. The session considers the strengths and weaknesses of public history’s multi-modal methodologies—for example, oral histories and how they are shared--as they engage the public in different contexts. The presentations emphasize the types of collaborative knowledge creation and sharing that can be generative for scholars working in a range of educational settings in history or other disciplines

Sub Unit

• Division F - Historical Inquiry in Education

Chair

• Heather Lewis, Pratt Institute

Papers

• Oral History, Collaboration, and Multimodality in the Harlem Education History Project - Ansley T. Erickson, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Voices From the Past: Multimodal Narratives of the DuSable Museum of African American History - Lori M. West, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Reclaiming the Record: Community-Based Collaborative Projects in Two African American Museums - LaNesha DeBardelaben

• Higher Education's Silences: Teaching and Curating Public History Projects - Heather Lewis, Pratt Institute