{"id":27727,"date":"2026-05-14T13:40:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/?post_type=cu_description&#038;p=27727"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:40:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:40:47","slug":"public-history-from-memory-to-museums","status":"publish","type":"cu_description","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/description\/public-history-from-memory-to-museums\/","title":{"rendered":"Public History From Memory to Museums"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p><strong>Fall 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>HIST 2811<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Professor John C. Walsh<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Introduction: <\/strong>Public history is one of the most rapidly growing fields of historical research and professional practice. Public history deals with the ways in which history is created and presented in the public arena. This includes sites like museums, monuments, exhibitions, historic sites, and archives, but also forms such as graphic novels, video games, live performances, and a smorgasbord of digital histories. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Class Format<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Aims and Goals<\/strong>: There are two fundamental goals for this course. First, it seeks to introduce students to public history as both a practice and a career.&nbsp; Second, it will immerse students in doing public history by pursuing a \u201cpublic history of place\u201d project from the first weeks of the course until the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Assessment (tentative): <\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Attendance: 10%<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Online, Asynchronous Quizzes: 40%<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Public History of Place Project:&nbsp; 50% (this is broken down into components over the term)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Text:&nbsp; <\/strong>The core text will be Thomas Cauvin, <em>Public History: A Textbook of Practice<\/em> 2nd Edition (Routledge, 2022) \u2013 please note that you will need the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> edition and copies of this will be ordered through the university bookstore, but students can find the book in a wide range of retailers. A copy of the textbook will also be placed on reserve at the library. All other required readings, screenings, or listenings will be made available electronically through the course website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Questions?<\/strong> Please email me at: john.walsh@carleton.ca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":520,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_description_type":[],"class_list":["post-27727","cu_description","type-cu_description","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description\/27727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_description"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description\/27727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27728,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description\/27727\/revisions\/27728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_description_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description_type?post=27727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}