Author Archives: editors

NCPH news May 21, 2013 – NCPH supports visas for Cuban scholars

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NCPH Supports Visas for Cuban Scholars. NCPH President Robert Weyeneth wrote to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in support of facilitating visas for Cuban scholars invited to attend the 31st Congress of the Latin American Studies Association.

Social Media 102. NCPH workshop facilitator Jenn Nelsen has created a resource page of things mentioned during her workshop at the Ottawa conference.

Beginning to Make a DIF. Please help NCPH integrate History@Work, The Public Historian, the Public History Commons, and social media. We’re building an exciting new set of interconnected publications, and we need your tax-deductible gift today!

Consultants Tweetchatting about International Perspectives. Here is the transcript of the NCPH Consultants Committee TweetChat on May 6; in the spirit of the Ottawa annual meeting, the topic was international.

2014 Annual Meeting Call for Proposals. NCPH will meet in Monterey, California next March to talk about “Sustainable Public History.” Don’t miss your chance to get in on the conversations by submitting your session, workshop, or working group proposal by July 15, 2013.

New in The Public Historian. The current issue of the journal includes a roundtable on “Imagining the Digital Future of The Public Historian,” two articles on Public History and State Humanities Councils, and more.

Nominations Sought. Send us your recommendations for NCPH president, board, and nominating committee positions.

JOBS

Searching for or posting a public history job or internship on the NCPH website is free!

Project Showcase: Returning the Voices to Kouchibouguac

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kouchibouguac-imageIn 1969 the Canadian and New Brunswick governments agreed to create Kouchibouguac National Park along the east coast of this Atlantic province. At the time, establishment of a national park required removing the people who resided there, in the belief that nature should be exhibited to visitors without signs of any human presence. Over 1200 individuals were uprooted, having been told that their lives were worthless and that they could only be helped by being forced to move.

But government officials had not taken into account how this particular case of forced removal would be viewed by the residents, most of whom were Acadians, a people with a strong memory of having been deported by the British in the mid-18th century. There was large-scale resistance that resulted in the park being shut down on several occasions.

And the leader of the resistance, Jackie Vautour, remains a squatter on his land to this day.

The Kouchibouguac story of removal and resistance has provided a source of inspiration for Acadian artists working in a variety of genres. But the story of resistance only tells part of what happened at Kouchibouguac, because most families simply and quietly left their lands to create new lives, often within kilometres of the borders of the park. Returning the Voices to Kouchibouguac National Park tells a wide range of stories inspired by the experiences of the residents.

The central feature of the site is the presentation of 26 video portraits drawn from interviews with former residents, who often told their stories while standing on the lands where they once lived. (One of these videos has been embedded below.) Visitors are encouraged to interact with the map that was created at the time of the expropriation to facilitate the process. Here, however, the map has been subverted to serve as a navigational device to return the voices of the residents to their lands.

The residents who were removed to allow the creation of Kouchibouguac National Park can never return to their lands, but this project makes it possible for some of their voices to return, if only virtually.

~ Ronald Rudin, Concordia University

Professional opportunities May 16, 2013

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ANNCT:  Museum Assessment Program (MAP) application now available from IMLS
DEADLINE:  July 1, 2013

CFP:  PopMatters seeks 1200+ wd articles on “Is anachronism good or bad for consumers of historical fictions?”
DEADLINE:  May 31, 2013

CFP:  “Talking about protest – Oral history methodology in social and political movements research,” Sept. 20, 2013, Warwick, U.K.
EXTENDED DEADLINE:  June 2, 2013

CFP:  Panel on “Co-Creation, the Public and the Archaeological Record” for Society for American Archaeology Meetings, April 24 – 27 Austin, Texas, U.S.
DEADLINE:  June 15, 2013

CFP:  REHAB 2014 International Conference on Preservation, Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings and Structures, March 19-21, 2014, Tomar, Portugal
DEADLINE:  June 30, 2013

CFP: IMAGES (3)/Images of the City Conference, Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 2013, Istanbul, Turkey
DEADLINE:  June 30, 2013

CONF: Food in History: Anglo-American Conference 2013, July 11-13, 2013, London, U.K.

CONF:  Digital Directions: Fundamentals of Creating and Managing Digital Collections, July 21-23, 2013, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.

EDU: Special Summer Course on Teaching History with Museums, July 8-18, 2013, Dobbs Ferry, New York, U.S.

FUNDING: Charlton Oral History Research Grant available from Baylor University Institute for Oral History
DEADLINE:  June 21, 2013

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Project Showcase: Museum on the Move

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airstream trailer

This 1954 Airstream trailer is the home of UL Lafayette’s Museum on the Move. Photo: Museum on the Move.

Building upon our innovative approaches to teaching and practicing Public History, the History Department at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is proud to announce an exceptional project called Museum on the Move. Public History students will outfit a vintage Airstream trailer (left) with an interpretive exhibit that will then hit the road to take history directly out of the classroom and to the public. Exhibits will be created on a rotating basis and require the melding of two courses and a cohort of students.

The first course will be a traditional history course where students conduct research projects geared toward the planned exhibit. The next phase of the project is for a Museum Studies course where students re-craft the research done in the first class to create exhibit components that they will install in the trailer. Once the exhibit is up and rolling, the trailer will be sent out on short runs to venues around the state where the students’ (and the program’s) work will be on display.

The first planned exhibit will be on Louisiana Women and it is being timed to coincide with the publication of Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume 2 (University of Georgia Press) being edited by the department’s own Dr. Mary Farmer-Kaiser. Students currently enrolled in her course on Louisiana Women are pursuing their studies with an eye toward the future exhibit and are excited to be a part of something with such potential for hands-on success. In the end, it is our intent for the program to teach students the methods and value of creative approaches to practicing history and to establish a recognizable product in the form of rotating exhibit topics in a compelling package. The trailer has been purchased, the class is underway, and everything is coming together.

~ Bob Carriker, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Project Showcase: “Inside a Senate Investigation: Watergate 40 Years Later”

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senators voting

Senators Howard Baker (R-TN) and Sam Ervin (D-NC) cast votes during the Senate Watergate Committee hearings of 1973. Seated behind the senators is the committee deputy counsel Rufus Edmisten, whose oral history interview is included in the collection of the U.S. Senate Historical Office. (Photo courtesy Senate Historical Office.)

During the month of May 2013, on www.senate.gov, the U.S. Senate Historical Office looks back 40 years to one of the Senate’s most important investigations. The Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, more commonly known as the Watergate Committee, questioned the president’s closest advisors about the break-in and cover-up at the Watergate office complex and other “illegal and improper campaign practices” that occurred during the presidential campaign of 1972.

Hearings began in closed session on March 28, 1973, and then continued in open, televised sessions on May 17. Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina chaired the committee, with Tennessee’s Howard Baker serving as vice-chair, ably assisted by their majority and minority counsels, Sam Dash and Fred Thompson.

Under the guidance of Senators Ervin and Baker, and backed by bipartisan support of the Senate, the Watergate Committee produced much of the evidence that led to the August 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon. The Watergate Committee also established an important legislative legacy.

As the Watergate Committee continued its work, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration prepared for an anticipated impeachment trial. Assisted by long-time Senate parliamentarian Floyd Riddick, the Rules Committee held its own set of executive session hearings to lay the groundwork for a presidential impeachment trial.

Since its first inquiry in 1792, Congress has conducted hundreds of investigations, fulfilling a constitutional oversight responsibility while serving as the eyes and ears of the American public. During the Civil War, Congress created the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to oversee wartime activities of the Lincoln administration.  Throughout its history the Senate has investigated a wide array of issues, including organized crime, the defense industry, and Wall Street banking practices, revealing some of its most interesting stories and personalities, but few investigations have proved to be as consequential as Watergate. For further information, contact historian@sec.senate.gov.

~ Betty Koed, Associate Historian, United States Senate

Professional opportunities May 7, 2013

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ANNCT:  BackStory seeks input for upcoming broadcast on history of intellectual property

CFP: “Second-Class Scholars?: Outside the Ivory Tower, Off the Tenure Track” roundtable participants sought, Nov. 8-10, 2013, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
DEADLINE:  May 17, 2013

CFP: One Archipelago, Many Stories: Integrating Our Narratives, August 30-31, 2013, Mangilao, Guam
DEADLINE:  June 1, 2013

CFP: World Congress of Environmental History, July 7-14, 2014, Guimarães, Portugal
DEADLINE:  June 15, 2014

CFP: Special Issue of Collection Management  - “We’re Moving, Please Pardon Our Dust: A New Collection Management Paradigm”
DEADLINE:  June 24, 2013

CFP: Oral History Forum d’Histoire Orale 2014 Special Issue: “Human Rights and oral history: stories of survival, healing, redemption, and accountability”
DEADLINE:  Sept. 15, 2013

CFP: Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Ransoming Practices, Oct. 25-26, 2013, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

CONF: Centre on Human Rights in Conflict workshop on Law, Faith and Historical Memory, June 12, 2013, Stratford, U.K.

EDU:  “Assessing the U.S. Constitution: 21st Century Resposes to 18th Century Assumptions” seminar with Sanford Levinson, Sept.-Nov. 2013, Washington, D.C., U.S.
APPLICATION DEADLINE:  May 15, 2013

EXH:  “There is no There There,”  An Interactive Pop-Up Oral History Exhibit, May 17, 2013, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

PUB:  Three years of “The Historic Environment:  Policy & Practice” journal content available free until June 15, 2013

NCPH News, May 1, 2013 – Speed brake on the omnipresence of the past

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NEWS

  • “A Speed-Brake on the Omnipresence of the Past.”  The New York Times’s Bill Keller on “Erasing History.”
  • NEH Chairman Jim Leach to Resign. The ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities will be leaving effective the first week of May.
  • Find A Map from Almost Any Time and Place Online. The Digital Public Library of America announces the addition of a  treasure trove of 38,000 historical maps from a private collection.
  • Results of Humanities “Alt[ernative]-Ac[ademic]” Career Survey. “Some humanities disciplines, such as history, do have a strong tradition in public engagement; public history is a well-developed sub-discipline….”
  • Resources for the Consulting Historian.  “After discussions at the 2013 NCPH conference… I’ve decided to aggregate those resources into a list so that others with similar questions have a ‘jumping off’ point as they start explore the private sector for themselves.”

NCPH

  • Consultants’ Monthly TweetChat. Monday, May 6, at 4pm Eastern.  The topic will be “International Perspectives in Consulting.”  Instructions for participating are here.
  • Beginning to Make a DIF.  We announced a Digital Integration Fund (DIF) during the NCPH annual meeting and are asking for your support.  Help us make a DIF!  The fund will support History@Work and the continuing creation of a lively central gathering-place for practitioners, scholars, and their many publics and expand the possibilities for peer review.
  • Fired Up about the Public History Field?  Suggest good people for next year’s NCPH election slate!
  • More Photos from Ottawa Meeting.  We’ve added new images to the Flickr page for the NCPH annual meeting.  We encourage you to share your own images from the conference on the NCPH Facebook page or by tweeting using the #NCPH2013 hashtag.
  • Calling All Autopsy Witnesses.   If you attended Public Plenary speaker Dr. Vittorio Marchis’s autopsy of a telephone at the Ottawa meeting and took home a piece, please consider sending a photo of yourself holding your prize (email ncph@iupui.edu). We’d like to reassemble the telephone virtually by grouping the parts.

Professional opportunities May 1, 2013

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CFP: Objects of Remembrance (Special issue of the Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts)
DEADLINE: May 31, 2013

CFP: Film, History and Public Memory Conference, Oct. 4, 2013, Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland
DEADLINE: June 2, 2013

CFP: Remembering in a Globalizing World: The Play and Interplay of Tourism, Memory, and Place, September 8-10, 2014, Le Chambon sur Lignon, France
DEADLINE: Nov. 30, 2013

CFP: WGBH Media Library and Archives Opportunity for Digital Humanities Scholars

CONF: Digital Acrobatics: Performing the Circus Oz Living Archive, July 4-5, 2013, Melbourne, Australia

FUNDING: Deadline Extension for NEH Grant Opportunity: Created Equal film sets and public programming grants
DEADLINE: May 15, 2013

PUB: Table of Contents for Oral History Review Volume 40 Issue 1 Winter-Spring 2013

NCPH News and conference updates April 25, 2013 – Conference recap

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NEWS

NCPH CONFERENCE RECAP

  • Beginning to make a DIF. Digital media reverberated throughout the NCPH meeting in Ottawa and will play a bigger role next year. We announced a Digital Integration Fund (DIF) during the conference and are asking for your support.  Help us make a DIF!  The fund will support the creation of a lively central gathering-place for practitioners, scholars, and their many publics and expand the possibilities for peer review. http://bit.ly/Y4dBID
  • Refreshed. Reinvigorated. Connected. Challenged. These are some of the buzz words we are hearing from participants in the 2013 NCPH conference in Ottawa, “Knowing Your Public(s).” Thank you to every one of the 537 colleagues who attended the event and for cultivating a conference focused on meaningful conversations, interactivity, and collaboration.
  • Tweets and More from Ottawa. For a recap of the conference excitement, check out @mlundrig’s Storify archive of #NCPH2013 tweets at http://bit.ly/11JcABk
  • Check out the NCPH Flickr page for photos from the meeting.  Check back as we’ll continue to add more. We encourage you to share your own images from the conference on the NCPH Facebook page or by tweeting using the #NCPH2013 hashtag.
  • For conference coverage by Joel Ralph of Canada’s History click here.
  • Most Importantly… We also want to thank all the members of the Host and Program Committees, the speakers, and the many volunteers who made this conference possible. For more information, see http://ncph.org/cms/conferences/2013-annual-meeting/.
  • Fired Up about the Annual Meeting or the Field?  Suggest good people for next year’s NCPH election slate.

Lightning Talks and Digital Drop-In today

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Join us for two digital-public-history events today at the NCPH conference:

Lightning Talks (12:30-1:30 p.m.) – An informal brown-bag lunch session in the Frontenac Room where you can showcase your own digital project and hear what’s new and exciting in the digital humanities. At this brown-bag lunchtime session, presenters will each have two to three minutes to describe their projects. At least twentyspaces will be available on a first-come, first serve basis. Advance sign-up suggested but not required; you can sign up at the registration desk this morning.

Digital Drop-In (5-6:45 p.m.) – Stuck on a digital project?  Looking for some general advice on how to make your digital idea a reality?  At NCPH’s version of the “genius bar,” experienced digital public historians (see list below) will be available to help you with questions about project development and management; audio and visual media; specific platforms like WordPress and Omeka; mapping; social media; user-generated content; and more.  Drop in for quick, targeted advice on your way to the poster session or consultants’ reception.  Remember, there are no stupid questions!

Digital Drop-In Advisors:

  • Devon Elliott, Western University
  • Mary Larson, Oklahoma State University
  • Diana Lempel, Harvard University
  • Josh Macfadyen, Western University
  • Caroline Muglia, U.S. Library of Congress
  • Jon Berndt Olsen, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
  • Joel Ralph, Canada’s History
  • Ron Rudin, Concordia University
  • Will Tchakarides, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
  • Mark Tebeau, Cleveland State University