David Dean

David Dean specialises in public history, performance and history, and early modern British history. He has two books in the press: In Granite and Bronze: An Unofficial Guide to the Monuments of the National Capital Region (McGill-Queen’s, co-edited with Tonya Davidson) and Performing Public History (Routledge) and is working on a third, The Challenge of Public History for the Cambridge Elements series. David is co-editor (with Andreas Etges) of International Public History the journal of the International Federation for Public History.

Recent publications include “Pop-up History: Taking History to the Streets in Canada’s Capital City,” in Joanna Woyden and Dorota Wiśniewska (ed) History in Public Space (Routledge, 2024); “Publics, Public Historians and Participatory Public History” in Joanna Woyden and Dorota Wiśniewska (eds) Public and Public History (Routledge, 2021); entries on “Living History” in Serge Noiret, Mark Tebeau, and Gerben Zaagsma (eds) Handbook of Digital Public History (De Gruyter, 2022) and Vanessa Agnew, Jonathan Lamb and Juliane Tomann (eds),The Routledge Handbook of Reenactment Studies (Routledge, 2020); and Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture (Palgrave, 2020) co-edited with Yana Meerzon and Daniel McNeil which won the Canadian Association of Theatre Research’s 2022 Patrick O’Neil Honorable Mention Award.

David edited A Companion to Public History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018) and a special issue for Early Theatre (December 2018) on Dekker, Rowley, and Ford’s intriguing 1624 play, The Witch of Edmonton. His public history research has been published in journals such as The Public Historian, Public History Weekly, the Journal of American History, Parliamentary History, Unbound, Memoria e Ricerca, and Re-thinking History. David speaks regularly at international public history conferences, workshops, and seminars, most recently in Indonesia, Luxembourg, and Brazil.

After completing his BA and MA at the University of Auckland and his PhD at Cambridge, David taught at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London for eleven years before coming to Carleton where he was Full Professor from 2000 until his retirement in 2024. One of the founding members of the Department’s MA in Public History, David co-founded the Carleton Centre for Public History and shared the co-directorship over the years with Dr James Opp and Dr John Walsh. David is still involved with the Centre, particularly as

project lead of Capital History Kiosks, telling local histories on traffic control boxes throughout the city of Ottawa and an associated website, capitalhistory.ca.

David is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and from 2016 until the end of 2024 served as an elected member of the steering committee of the International Federation for Public History. He is currently President of Ottawa’s Workers’ History Museum.

Current Research Interests

• Performing public history and performing history publicly in national and transnational contexts
• Transnational public history
• Historical representation in theatre, re-enactment, film, and museums
• Early Modern British political, social, and cultural history especially drama and visual culture

Some of his articles (on theatre, museums, the Elizabethan lottery) are available on Academia.edu.

Current and Recent Funded Research Projects

• Philately in Troubled Times: A Citizen Science Approach (SSHRC Insight Development Grant 2024-2026)
• Monumental Memories: Stories in Stone (SSHRC Knowledge Mobilization Grant)
• Experiencing COVID-19 Through Science and Technology: Adjusting, Adapting, Innovating (CU RRRG Project) with Rebecca Dolgoy, Molly McCullough, and Emily Gann, Ingenium
• The NAC@50 (SSHRC funded, co-investigator on project led by Prof. Stephen Fai, Architecture)
• Designing Domestic Dining (SSHRC funded, co-investigator on project led by Prof. Michael Windover)

Awards

David received the Provost’s Fellowship in Teaching in 2016 and in 2015 both the FASS Research Award and the FASS Teaching Award. He was part of the Public History Management team that won the University’s 2016 Building Connections Award

Recent Graduate Students (graduated 2020-24)

• Holly Benison, “The Backwoods Kitchen” (MA Public History, co-supervisor with Professor James Opp).
• Nick Leckey, Local Play in Game Design: A Reflection on Gamifying L’Institut Jeanne d’Arc (MA, Public History, co-supervisor with Professor Shawn Graham)
• Jackie Mahoney, “A Great and Noble Life”: Performing Johanna van Gogh Bonger (MA, Public History)
• Nicholas Surges, “Fabulating Feelings: Affectivity and Historical Narrative in the Mayerling Incident” (MA Public History, co-supervisor with Professor Jennifer Evans)
• Rick Duthie, “One Day Stronger”: A Public History Theatrical Experiment about Remembered Sudbury Strikes, 1958-2010 (PhD, co-supervisor with Professor John Walsh)
• Lisa Bullock, “I learned it from a board game’: performing historical narratives in Expedition: Northwest Passage (MA History, co-supervisor with Professor Danielle Kinsey)
• Meghan Newman, A Catholic Woman and a Catholic Queen: The Religiousity of Mary I (MA History co-supervisor with Professor Micheline White)
• Meg Oldfield, Women are Persons! The History and Legacy of the Famous Five Monument (MA Public History)
• Valerie Wood, “Vee in Between”  – A Children’s Book Storying Transracial Adoption (MA Public History, co-supervisor with Professor Laura Madokoro)
• Kate Jordan, Dominion Chalmers: A Congregation and its Time (MA Public History)
• Natalie Picard, Education Kits for the Classroom: Reflections on Taking an Object-Based Approach to Teaching Japanese Canadian Internment (includes Museum Education Kit for schools)

While David is no longer teaching, he is available to graduate students for conversations about all things public history, international networking possibilities, and support for their research projects.

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