public humanities: looking back and looking ahead

Upload: steven-lubar

Post on 02-Jun-2018

217 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    1/102

    Public HumanitiesLooking Back and Looking Ahead

    Calling all public humanists

    past, present, and future!

    Are you a student looking to apply your skills asa humanities major into a careerlike

    programming, outreach, and education;community cultural work; historic preservation;

    arts and nonprofit administration; museumeducation, interpretation and curatorial work; or

    cultural planningand seeking moreinformation about the public humanities?

    Are you a professor or local professional trying

    to kick-start humanities courses, programs orprogramming at your college or organization?

    Have you experience in the public humanities

    and want to join in t he conversation?

    All are invited to join Steven Lubar, professor ofAmerican Studies and History at Brown

    University, former curator at t he SmithsonianMuseum, and until this past June, director of the

    John Nicholas Brown Center for Public

    Humanities and Cultural Heritage, as hediscusses his decade-long tenure at the helm ofBrownspublic humanities program.

    I learned a l ittle about how teachers teach and students

    learn, how universities work, and don't, why I like doingprojects, and just how confusing the job market is.

    -Lubar, 2014

    Sponsored by

    Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, UMass Amherst Public History Program

    and the Five Colleges, Inc./Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Bridging Init iative in

    the Public and Applied Humanities

    Lecture Open to the Public

    When: Monday, October 27, 2014

    5:30pm

    Where: Gamble Auditorium/ Mount

    Holyoke College Art Museum

    Please join us!

    A presentation by ProfessorSteven Lubar

    he flyer for the talk. The audience was students and faculty at UMass-Amherst and surrounding schoolsterested in attending or setting up a program.

    1

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    2/102

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    3/102

    ve just stopped being director of the Brown public humanities program, which gives me a bit of distance.ather than worry about day to day administration, I can step back and think about it. Where did that ten ye

    o? What would I do if I were starting from scratch today? Thats the looking back and looking ahead for thlk.

    he audience for this talk is, Im told, three groups - students interested in public humanities, faculty thinkinbout teaching public humanities, local institutions. I hope theyll be something here for all of you.

    3

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    4/102

    f

    4

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    5/102

    ur changing logos. Of interest for more than just the history of graphic design First one about a beautifuuilding. Blue one tried to put it in background, but still informed the design. The next one hid it: our gate, a

    EH H. Last one: pure abstraction: were about overlap. (Its also very similar to the UNESCO cultural divego.)

    f course, I may be the only one who sees these meanings

    5

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    6/102

    Mission Statement, 2004

    The John Nicholas Brown Center atBrown University is dedicated to

    advancing scholarship and educationin American civilization bymanaging, preserving, and providingaccess to the Nightingale-BrownHouse and the Brown familyarchives. The Center serves topromote scholarly and educationalactivities at Brown University andamong people and institutions withinand beyond the region.

    When I started: Wonderful house, open as a historic house museum, and a narrow mission: about house arown family. A fellowship program mostly for New England history. (Build in highlighting)

    6

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    7/102

    Mission Statement, 2005

    The John Nicholas Brown Center isBrown Universitys center for thepublic humanities. It supportsstudents and faculty who connect thepublic to history, art, and culture,and sponsors programs that considerthe ways in which the humanitiesenrich everyday life.

    The John Nicholas Brown Center

    is Brown Universitys center for

    the public humanities.

    We support students and faculty

    that connect the public tohistory, art, and culture, and

    sponsor programs that consider

    the ways in which the

    humanities enrich everyday life.

    JNBC rograms

    M.A. in Public Humanities

    Beginning in Fall 2005, Brown's

    Department of American Civilization will

    offer a new Masters program in the Public

    Humanities. This two-year program,

    centered at the JNBC, will draw on the

    resources of Brown and local museumsand community organizations to train

    students for careers in museums, historic

    preservation, community cultural

    organizations, and other organizations that

    connect the public with history, art, ideas

    and culture.

    Think ta nk for public humanities

    The JNBC will become a think tank for the

    public humanities. Through conferences,

    seminars, and publications, we hope to

    address issues of history and memory,

    history and its publics, and the changing

    nature of the public sphere.

    Continuing education programsfor public humanities professionals

    The JNBC sponsors summer, semester,

    and shorter programs. Summer 2005

    programs are Whats it worth and Why?

    The changing meanings of value in

    Museums, and New Approaches to Race,

    Class and Gender for Museum

    Professionals.

    Brown University PublicHumanities Grants

    The JNBC supports public humanities

    programs at Brown University. Small

    grants are available for faculty/student

    ,

    .

    ,

    .

    Text

    rst step to to change it to public humanities - but here the thing to notice is the focus on students and faconnecting to public.

    7

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    8/102

    Current Mission Statement

    The John Nicholas Brown Center forPublic Humanities and CulturalHeritages innovative MA program,engaged research, and professionaldevelopment workshops helpstudents, practitioners andcommunities make the humanitiesmeaningful and accessible.

    Weve been through a variety of mission statements - its a good class project to rewrite the Centers missiatement. Now - our programs are all about communities making the humanities meaningful - not about

    niversity. This is key: weve gone from being about us to being about them. Not, well teach you, theommunity, about things that we academics know and you should know, but: well help you do the work thaseful to you.

    8

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    9/102

    comparison of our first and current mission statement. Shorter, which is always better.

    briefly describe our MA program, engaged research, and professional development workshops.

    9

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    10/102

    ur major program has been the MA in public humanities. We were the first to give such a degree - a fewhers have come about in the last decade.

    ome history: a replacement for the MA in museum studies. An American studies rethink of public history:ublic humanities is to American studies as public history is to history.

    10

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    11/102

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    12/102

    PUBLIC HUMANITIESJOIN THEM!

    THE

    DEFINEOUR STUDENTS

    WWW.BROWN.EDU/JNBC

    poster from a few years ago. Students sometimes think that its hard to define the public humanities andats a problem, in looking for jobs. I say yes, its hard, and thats an opportunity! In this flyer, we address

    rectly!

    art about the program upside down flip it over:

    12

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    13/102

    PUBLIC HUMANITIESJOIN THEM!

    THE

    DEFINEOUR STUDENTS

    WWW.BROWN.EDU/JNBC

    poster from a few years ago. Students sometimes think that its hard to define the public humanities andats a problem, in looking for jobs. I say yes, its hard, and thats an opportunity! In this flyer, we address

    rectly!

    art about the program upside down flip it over:

    12

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    14/102

    e three ways students learn in the program - more detail later.

    13

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    15/102

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    16/102

    equired: Intro and Method. Strongly recommended: nonprofit management.

    ur basic program has stayed remarkably consistent. But its time to rethink it - a lot has changed around un years.

    racticums: one in summer, one during second year. Projects can replace practicums.

    15

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    17/102

    16

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    18/102

    his is our official line, and its pretty much true. Challenge: how you balance practical skills and a broaderew - one necessary for immediate jobs, one for longer term.

    ention use of professionals in the field as adjuncts, workshops, projects.

    17

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    19/102

    troduction: Seminar: big questions addressed using theory and case studies. This years big questions: tublic, heritage, and memory. In past: community, culture, curation Readings: from Museums and the Pu

    phere to A Golden Haze of Memory.

    ethods: lecture/ seminar: often one or several large projects, usually exhibit projects.

    18

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    20/102

    ome co-sponsored with RISD. Some taught by adjuncts, staff and postdocs.

    19

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    21/102

    udents have taken courses in these departments , among others- this list gives a pretty good sense of oupics. Note: archaeology and cultural heritage; public policy, education and sociology overlap with nonpro

    ban studies and heritage, cultural policy; music and ethnomusicology; performance studies and communork.

    20

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    22/102

    ut we cant teach everything in courses, and so we offer workshops, and also pay for students to takeorkshops beyond Brown. In recent years, these have become more practical: job hunting, public speakin

    21

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    23/102

    nd on-job training essential to the field. Last summers practicums. We have a complicated system ofgreements, writing assignments. Most of these work, but not all.

    22

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    24/102

    23

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    25/102

    ngaged Research or engaged scholarship is a buzzword that I wrestle withverlaps with service-learning, community based research, and public scholarship.

    y focus is on reciprocal work with community and integration of teaching, research, and service.

    also think that its about community groups, not just individuals in the community.

    some ways, very much like the old notion of land-grant schools: research for community good. Thats noecessarily the same thing as social change or social justice or activism- will get to this later.

    24

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    26/102

    Mashapaug Pond Project

    nnie Valk, until this summer the Centers deputy director, was the master of this work. Her Fox Point histond Mashapaug Pond histories are based on new research both archives and from talking to people, shar

    hat she learned with the community, and aimed at making the area better. Also worked with artists, andommunity groups.

    25

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    27/102

    ashapug pond website

    26

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    28/102

    Fox Point Photo History

    ngaged research has different outputs than does regular academic research. This Flickr site, with more th0,000 photographs, and an accompanying oral history site, are engaged research. Community choices, o

    ssistance.

    27

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    29/102

    Fox Point Oral Histories

    teresting to compare the pictures that the community adds to their website and the ones chosen by us foal history website. We have a different sense of what history is, a different set of categories.

    28

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    30/102

    American DanceLegacy Initiative

    DLI does research in dance as a way of understanding American history and then gives it back to a widenge of people - works with local high schools to teach dance and dance history

    29

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    31/102

    30

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    32/102

    ur students work in the community (and in the university) - the program pays them to work with localganizations. Some of the recent jobs listed here.

    31

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    33/102

    Annie:

    Community PartnershipCenter, Roger Williams

    University Providence Public

    Library

    Little ComptonHistorical Society

    Broad Street Synagogue RiverzEdge Arts Project Forbes House Museum Friends of Providence

    Parks

    Barrington PublicLibrary Living on the Edge

    Project, RoyCarpenters Beach

    Urban Pond Procession Rhodi Project, RIHS

    Ron:

    Little ComptonHistorical Society

    Governor StephenHopkins HouseMuseum

    Westport HistoricalSociety

    Preserve Rhode Island Governor Henry Lippitt

    House Museum

    Tiverton Public Library Benefit Street Arsenal

    New Bedford WhalingMuseum

    useum staff also does work for local organizations - sometimes getting students involved.

    32

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    34/102

    ublic Humanities Clinic - inspired by Natalie Jeremijenkos Environmental Health Clinic at NYU (http://ww.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/clinic/)

    ever took off - but still worth pursuing.

    With that overview of the program, Id like to turn to another way of thinking about the public humanities. Thas what weve done. Next, what Ive learned.

    33

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    35/102

    even rules for public humanists

    34

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    36/102

    even rules for public humanists

    34

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    37/102

    art not by looking at what you, your discipline, or the university needs and wants, but by what individualsommunities outside the university need and want. Its not, were from the university, and were here to he

    ut, What are you doing already, and how can we participate? How can we be useful? Its not about tellineople facts. Its about a dialogue, a sharing of authority, knowledge, expertise.

    35

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    38/102

    Vartan GregorianElementary School,Fox Point

    ack to Fox Point and a class project there. We went into this with one idea about what was important, basn what seems important to historians. Talk to the kids at the elementary school, and you get a very differe

    ense of what history seems important.

    36

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    39/102

    the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School

    37

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    40/102

    University HistoricHouse Museums Project

    recent student project was to try to understand how university-owned historic house museums can be ushis was done as consulting work for the Liberty Hall Museum at Kean University in New Jersey. One of th

    ings we learned was the importance of understanding all of the intersecting communities around historicouse museums.tp://www.brown.edu/academics/public-humanities/news/2014-07/university-affiliated-historic-house-useums

    38

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    41/102

    Stanford University

    pu

    bl

    ich

    umanities

    progra m

    brown

    univer

    sity

    A lecture series sponsored by the John Nicholas Brown

    Center Public Humanities Program and the Joukowsky

    Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.

    This series will explore the problems and practice of

    cultural, or heritage, tourism, from many disciplinary

    angles and in a cross-cultural context.

    For more information, please contact the John Nicholas Brown

    Center at 401 863-1177 or [email protected].

    Monday, November 12, 2007 5:30 p.m.

    Cultural? Heritage?Tourism?lecture series

    one of this will come as a surprise to those of you who look at issues of cultural heritage. Thinking about our work is for is central to cultural heritage work, and to public humanities work.

    39

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    42/102

    Cultural? Heritage?Tourism?lecture series

    Imagine Providence website

    se tools to let others be heard.

    40

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    43/102

    StoryCorps, Providence

    nother example of using tools to let others tell their story

    oryCorps is the perfect example of the challenge of it not being about us. Oral historians had problems woryCorps; it cuts the experts out. The Public Humanities Center sponsored StoryCorps in Providence.

    nd its a good transition to Rule #2: Youre not always the expert.

    41

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    44/102

    hared authority is complicated. In exhibits, its often an invitation to the subject and to the visitor to provideir stories, and points of view, and to share in setting the rules. Its using oral history in historical projects

    xhibits. Its web 2.0 methods of opening up online conversations. Having that conversation is not easy.nding the right balance is tricky. The humanist needs to be not only an expert, but also a facilitator, and aanslator. Seeking that balance is part of the work of every project.

    42

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    45/102

    WELCOME TO THE JOHN NICHOLAS BROWN CENTER

    Cocktails

    andConversation

    How to mix a cocktail party? All you

    need to provide is a stage for the

    extroverts, an excuse for the heavy

    drinkers, girls for the boys - and let

    the potato chips fall where they may.

    Helen Markel, How to mix a cocktail

    party, The NewYork Times, Nov. 2, 1958

    The cocktail party revolutionized

    entertaining in the 1950s. The hour of

    the cocktail ritualized the transition

    between the strict codes of the

    workplace and the unabashed gaiety

    of playtime throughout the twentieth

    century. During the 1950s in particular,

    cocktail consumption became the

    popular means of expressing and

    experiencing the new social construct

    of the century, the pursuit of leisure.

    For both men and women, hosting a

    cocktail party was as much about social

    organization and position as it was

    about entertaining.

    The Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design

    is planning the exhibition Cocktail Culturefor 2010. The

    exhibition will explore the cultural and social significanceof cocktails in the twentieth century as manifested through

    fashion and design. The language invented for and by the

    cocktail culture of the twentieth century will be illustrated

    by the glamour and sophistication of Christian Dior and

    Chanel, the kitsch and whimsy of the Tiki lounge, examples of

    furniture, barware, fashion, graphic arts, and even table linens

    produced solely for the purpose of consuming cocktails.Christian Dior,CocktailDress,Fall/Winter1954.Gift of Ronald and Lillian Dick.Photography by Erik Gould,courtesy of Museum of Art,Rhode Island Schoolof Design

    pu

    blic

    huma

    nitiesp

    rogram

    brow

    nuniv

    ersity

    Program withRISD Museum

    ot only a fun project: but perhaps being a host at a cocktail party is a model for public humanities. Youre cilitator, you help others make connections. Not about you, but youre a catalyst to help interact better.

    43

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    46/102

    Broad StreetSynagogue

    student project to try to find new uses for this building. Complicated process: students were involved inaking connections between the new community who lives in the area and the former members of the

    ynagogue, and the group that owns the building today.

    44

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    47/102

    he work of public engagement comes not after the scholarship, but as part of the scholarship. I dont like mplications of applied or translational; those terms suggest we do our work, in our normal way, and tha

    en converted into something for the public. Theres a model here in the transformation of public art. In the970s, public art was all too often an art project sprung on a community by a government agency. It came e artist, doing his own work, responding to his own community. Public art has moved to a model of

    ommunity interaction. Its not just for the public; it comes from the public. What would humanities scholarok like if it too developed out of a conversation? What if a humanities department was a hub of a commuartists, educators, scholars and the public?

    45

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    48/102

    Educating Change: Latina Activism andthe Struggle for Educational Equity

    att Garcia project: based on his research, student research, community engagement. Undergraduates anA students involved. Worked with community to both tell their story and to give them tools to tell their own

    ory.

    tp://www.brown.edu/Research/Coachella/

    46

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    49/102

    Chinese Food

    Weve done a lot with food studies in the program. This was reflected in an exhibition, and two graduateudents in the program took work they had done talking with restaurant owners and published papers in

    ating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader

    47

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    50/102

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    51/102

    Mashapaugs Neighbors project

    already mentioned Mashapaug Pond projects: oral history, cell phone tours, working with local schools,rban Pond Procession.

    49

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    52/102

    UndergroundRhode Island

    50

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    53/102

    Cape Verdean Fox Point was a vibrant, close-knit community

    that was displaced by urban renewal, gentrification, and

    the expansion of Brown University. But the community lives

    on in former residents memories, and in the photographs,

    archives, and artifacts so many residents saved. Their

    memories and stories come alive in this exhibit.

    May 11October 16, 2009

    MondayFriday, 14 p.m.

    John Nicholas Brown Center

    357 Benefit Street, Providence, RI

    www.brown.edu/jnbc

    Remember the Old Times: Cape Verdean Community in Fox Point, 19201945

    is a student-curated and executed exhibition that tells the story of the history and culture

    of the Cape Verdean community that lived in the Fox Point neighborhood.

    CAPEV

    ERDEAN

    COMMUNITY

    IN

    FOXPOINT

    1920

    1945

    Remember the

    Old Times FoxPoint exhibit

    ready mentioned the Fox Point project - this was a class exhibition. One of the things the students learneas just how hard it is to define community. So many ways people define themselves, so many different

    oups within communities: by gender, neighborhood, family

    51

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    54/102

    he Fox Point exhibit welcomed many Fox Pointers

    52

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    55/102

    Day of the Dead

    ay of the Dead altar, a student exhibit at the Haffenreffer Museum, working with local teen groups

    53

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    56/102

    Tejela: Weaving Stories,Weaving Lives

    series of student exhibition projects on Guatemalan textiles. Worked with the Haffenreffer Museum ofnthropology, the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and a local co-op of Guatemalan weavers in New Bedfo

    tp://www.whalingmuseum.org/explore/exhibitions/tejela-weaving-stories-weaving-lives-2013

    54

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    57/102

    Tejela: Weaving Stories,Weaving Lives

    Worked with local weavers, who demonstrated crafts.

    his leads to my next rule: work with artists.

    55

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    58/102

    alling something art rather than scholarship is a very freeing move. You have more flexibility. But workingtists to both perform and understand culture at the same time is best. You become part of the community

    ulture, you support it, and you help a larger public appreciate it.

    56

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    59/102

    student project that looked at our historic house in a new way: letting artists be inspired by its history

    57

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    60/102

    Ben Katchors TheInsomniacs Mansion

    ortunate to have faculty interested in art as a kind of scholarship. Paul Buhle brought us some amazingontacts with artists he had worked with.

    s been an interesting way for faculty to expand their work. Not all of this is directly public humanities, but form of academic connection with a wider public.

    58

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    61/102

    Worked with RISD student to design this one

    59

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    62/102

    A SYMPOSIUM AND EXHIBITION

    Jews and American

    COMICS

    Jews andAmericanComics

    nother Paul Buhle project

    60

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    63/102

    os Bros Hernandez exhibition - brought by Prof. Ralph Rodriguez

    61

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    64/102

    62

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    65/102

    Stih & Schnock

    project by two German artists on memorials, with Prof. Beverly Havilland.

    63

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    66/102

    Cora Marshall,EmancipatedMemories

    student-curated exhibition of paintings based on runaway slave advertisements

    64

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    67/102

    Cora Marshall

    Fox Point ComicsArtist: Alec Thibodeau

    rtist Alec Thibodeau working with the Fox Point oral history project, making oral history work available in aew way.

    65

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    68/102

    The Lost Museum

    nally, our most recent work, with artist Mark Dion. A re-collection of Browns lost Jenks Museum of Naturastory.

    66

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    69/102

    67

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    70/102

    he digital opens up new opportunities for outreach, of course. But it is important to go beyond the digital autreach to take advantage of digitals promise of a new kind of openness, a chance to share not just the

    utput of a project, but every step along the way. And it opens up the opportunity for many voices, many wtelling a story.

    ot the same as digital humanities - not so much digital as a tool for analysis, more as a tool for connectio

    nd not something weve done as well as we should.

    68

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    71/102

    Fox Point Photo History Project

    ox Point Flickr, from some time ago, still seems the most interesting. How can we use free public tools toake public humanities projects?

    69

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    72/102

    Working with the RI Council for the Humanities: student project (courses and jobs), many community partnased on Curatescape.

    70

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    73/102

    nother Curatescape project

    71

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    74/102

    Call of Lovecraftaugmented reality app

    72

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    75/102

    oing public humanities takes specific practical skills, and universities should teach them. That meanshanging PhD programs, and providing new training for faculty. We shouldnt assume that working with

    ommunities is a skill that comes along with a traditional humanities Ph.D. Practical, hands-on skills,verything from oral history to reading balance sheets, is essential to the work of the public humanities.

    73

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    76/102

    Project Management

    rom project management to research to exhibition design and implementation

    74

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    77/102

    The Museum ofWestminster Street

    to research skills:rom The Museum of Westminster Street - research every object on the street. (Credit to Lyra Monteiro f

    is project)

    75

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    78/102

    o teaching-to the public skills

    76

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    79/102

    A.A.TO ZOUAVECOLLECTIONS AT BROWNF

    ROM

    An exhibit ion honoring

    the tre asures of Brown

    Universitys collections.

    From the coffee pot that

    launched a thousand

    Alcoholics Anonymous

    meetings to a hand-knit

    cap from a Civil War

    Zouave regiment, see

    what Brow ns libraries,

    museums, and galleries

    have to offer.

    Curated by students

    in American Civilizations

    Methods in Public

    Humanities course.

    DECEMBER 11, 2 007 MAY 30, 2008

    Monday Friday, 1 5 p.m.

    ANN MAR Y B ROWN MEMORIA L

    21 Brown Street, Providence, Rhode Island

    FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.For more information, please contact the John Nicholas Brown

    Center at 401-863-1177 or [email protected].

    Sponsored by the John Nicholas Brown Center Public Humanities

    Program and the Brown University Library.

    A.A. To Zouave exhibition

    udent projects have been a key part of the program. Many exhibitions, but also programs and other evenontent, project management, and public work. Some are class projects, some not.

    77

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    80/102

    A-Z Exhibit

    o knowing how to hang banners on the side of buildings

    78

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    81/102

    Pulp Uncovered

    to organizing events

    79

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    82/102

    Sexual Education in the 20th Century

    BEYONDthe Birds and the Bees

    Beyond the Birdsand the Bees

    to talking about difficult topics

    o there are seven rules based on what Ive learned. But like all good rules, they just open up new questio

    he last part of this talk: Future: some big questions.

    80

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    83/102

    g questions or [click] some of the things Im worrying about now, issues that I think the field needs toonsider.

    81

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    84/102

    g questions or [click] some of the things Im worrying about now, issues that I think the field needs toonsider.

    81

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    85/102

    he one my students are most interested in: is public humanities about social change? Three related issueocial change, politics, social entrepreneurship.

    ocial change - almost every museum and nonprofit describes their work this way now. And certainly pubumanities can work for social change. Id argue that it doesnt necessarily have to do so. Sometimes itsnough to just describe. Indeed, describing, and letting others draw conclusions, seems to me a very publiumanities way to work.

    n example I like: Temple Universitys Art Gallery Funeral for a Home

    82

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    86/102

    he one my students are most interested in: is public humanities about social change? Three related issueocial change, politics, social entrepreneurship.

    ocial change - almost every museum and nonprofit describes their work this way now. And certainly pubumanities can work for social change. Id argue that it doesnt necessarily have to do so. Sometimes itsnough to just describe. Indeed, describing, and letting others draw conclusions, seems to me a very publiumanities way to work.

    n example I like: Temple Universitys Art Gallery Funeral for a Home

    82

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    87/102

    uth Simmons, former president of Brown, spoke Friday at the opening of the new Center for the Study ofavery and Justice. The Providence paper reported she said it should not be a hub for activism - what sh

    aid was more nuanced, about it being a place for research and debate - which to her is a kind of activismublic humanities is more than research and debate, but maybe less than activism.

    ould we invent a radical public humanities? One might look at an old form of labor activism here - before artley, when unions did cultural activities, whether the Wobblies or the Old Left. Or today, at whats beingalled alt-labor - non-union workers groups. (My thanks to Kate Dietrich for her discussions on this topic.

    ne might look at the way in which ethnic studies, in many universities, is tied to activism. Or at many kindocial practice art.

    83

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    88/102

    ocial entrepreneurship is the buzzword of the modern university, and public humanities programs need togure out how to incorporate it. The basic idea of social entrepreneurship is doing things that were once do

    y non-profits, for profit: socially useful businesses. I must admit it stumps me; we need more organizationxpertise, less entrepreneurial expertise. More precisely: we need people who can be entrepreneurial insidganizations, rather than being entrepreneurial by setting up new organizations.

    est example of the for-profit public humanities - the original Folkways Records.

    84

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    89/102

    ocial entrepreneurship is the buzzword of the modern university, and public humanities programs need togure out how to incorporate it. The basic idea of social entrepreneurship is doing things that were once do

    y non-profits, for profit: socially useful businesses. I must admit it stumps me; we need more organizationxpertise, less entrepreneurial expertise. More precisely: we need people who can be entrepreneurial insidganizations, rather than being entrepreneurial by setting up new organizations.

    est example of the for-profit public humanities - the original Folkways Records.

    84

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    90/102

    gital humanities has many meanings.

    n example of the high-tech social entrepreneurship: The Civic Media Lab at MIT - shown is one of their daurals -- Contratados - what my student Kate Dietrich calls Yelp for migrant workers.

    85

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    91/102

    gital humanities has many meanings.

    n example of the high-tech social entrepreneurship: The Civic Media Lab at MIT - shown is one of their daurals -- Contratados - what my student Kate Dietrich calls Yelp for migrant workers.

    85

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    92/102

    gital humanities has many meanings.

    n example of the high-tech social entrepreneurship: The Civic Media Lab at MIT - shown is one of their daurals -- Contratados - what my student Kate Dietrich calls Yelp for migrant workers.

    85

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    93/102

    next group of questions about public humanities at the university.

    he humanities crisis is really a crisis of definition if you define the humanities as what humanitiesofessors and grad students do, or want to do, theres a crisis. If you define it as people performing their

    ulture, and understanding their roots, and making community, and creating things based on tradition andnovation the humanities are going strong.

    What that suggests to me is that the way to cure the humanities crisis is to broaden the definition of theumanities.

    ut there is a crisis of the humanities - add one word to this title.

    86

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    94/102

    jobs

    ^

    ut there is a crisis in the humanities in the university. At the graduate level, most of that is connected to thck of good, tenure-track jobs for PhDs, and the universitys resistance for reasons having to do with

    aching needs and the nature of disciplines for cutting the size and number of PhD programs.

    hat brings me to ways to change the phd.

    87

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    95/102

    he Ph.D. Is a vocational degree, designed to train professors at research universities. As its designed no

    s not good training for almost anything else.

    could be. I believe that the Ph.D. should change to include public humanities: practical skills, working witommunities, etc. I am taken with the idea of a professional humanities doctorate, along the lines of a J.D.n M.D. - a four year, research and practiced base course aimed not at teaching but at the real world. (Seeoposal by Johann Neem in October in Inside Higher Education.)

    88

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    96/102

    see public humanities as a profession, and Im old fashioned in thinking that undergraduate studies shoulot be professional.

    owever, I think that theres much useful in public humanities work as a piece of a humanities undergraduaegree: talking to a wider audience, getting out to the community

    rowns American studies junior seminar is one approach: the public defined as each professor sees useome about the public, some working with the public.

    ext: three worries, beyond the university.

    89

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    97/102

    see public humanities as a profession, and Im old fashioned in thinking that undergraduate studies shoulot be professional.

    owever, I think that theres much useful in public humanities work as a piece of a humanities undergraduaegree: talking to a wider audience, getting out to the community

    rowns American studies junior seminar is one approach: the public defined as each professor sees useome about the public, some working with the public.

    ext: three worries, beyond the university.

    89

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    98/102

    dont see how we can train students to become public intellectuals. to compete with the likes of Te-Nehaoates in The Atlantic?

    hink we can train students to write well, and blog well, and to be public with their work.

    90

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    99/102

    dont see how we can train students to become public intellectuals. to compete with the likes of Te-Nehaoates in The Atlantic?

    hink we can train students to write well, and blog well, and to be public with their work.

    90

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    100/102

    his worries me more than the university job crisis I dont have an answer for it. Weve defined this work

    91

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    101/102

    nd with this one - is a very important question. Yes, you want to be able to separate the visceral from thetellectual - but to keep that connection when you need it. It's a source of power, and engagement. You w

    care deeply about your work - but also, when it's necessary, switch into professional engagement modeeople talk about code-switching - flipping between languages, cultures. Maybe there's something like thaublic humanities. You're in the business because you care deeply. But at the same time, you bring more tst caring; you bring a set of professional skills. How and when you use each, and combine them, is one oe challenges of the work.

    he personal is what makes this work so appealing - the professional is necessary to do it well - the challeto find the right combination

    92

  • 8/10/2019 Public Humanities: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    102/102

    nd with this one - is a very important question. Yes, you want to be able to separate the visceral from thetellectual - but to keep that connection when you need it. It's a source of power, and engagement. You w

    care deeply about your work - but also, when it's necessary, switch into professional engagement modeeople talk about code-switching - flipping between languages, cultures. Maybe there's something like thaublic humanities. You're in the business because you care deeply. But at the same time, you bring more tst caring; you bring a set of professional skills. How and when you use each, and combine them, is one oe challenges of the work.

    he personal is what makes this work so appealing the professional is necessary to do it well the challe

    93