HIST 2811A: Public History From Memory to Memory

HIST 2811A: Public History From Memory to Memory
Fall 2025

Introduction: Public history is one of the most rapidly growing fields of historical research. Public history deals with the ways in which history is created and presented in the public arena. This includes sites like museums and archives, but also photograph albums and family heirlooms, film, graphic novels, video games, live performances, mobile aps, websites and so on. The ubiquity of public history in our culture also means public history work and careers are being established in a wide range of places, in both the public and private sectors. Indeed, this is why in the last few years Carleton has added an undergraduate public history concentration to allow students to add some value to their degrees whether History Majors or Minors.

Class Format: Most weeks will be done in-person once / week in a three-hour block. (Some class time will be devoted to asynchronous site visits to avoid any conflicts with classes right before or after ours.) In-class time will involve a range of activities: lectures, discussion, screenings, public history experiments, and visits from public historians to talk about their professional careers and pathways.

Aims and Goals: There are two fundamental goals for this course. First, it seeks to introduce students to public history as both a practice and a career. Second, it seeks to train students to conduct their own experiments in doing public history – writing, speaking / performing, listening, curating, archiving, designing, preserving, and, throughout, reflecting on how and why we remember and live with the past.

Assessment: 50% of the course grade will be tied to in-class quizzes and activities – attendance is therefore crucial to success; 30% of the course grade will be allocated to a “course diary” that will feature semi-regular entries; 20% of the course grade will be allocated to a final summative project.

Text: The core text will be Thomas Cauvin, Public History: A Textbook of Practice 2nd Edition (Routledge, 2022) – please note that you will need the 2^nd edition and copies of this will be ordered through the university bookstore, but students can find the book in a wide range of retailers.

Questions? Please email me at: john[dot]walsh[at]carleton.ca