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"Public Histories of Union and Disunion" is the theme for the 2008 Annual Meeting of the National Council on Public History, taking place April 10-13 in Louisville, Kentucky. For this election-year conference, NCPH has organized sessions, field trips, and presentations that explore the role(s) public history has played in civic life, and particularly ways in which public history has been harnessed to foster unity, provoke division, or make sense of controversy. Some broad topics within this theme include: deployments of history in political arenas; assessments of “civic engagement” initiatives; the challenges inherent in the interpretation of sites and events associated with wounds that divide the public; and the consequences when competing histories are ascribed to the same place, event, or person. There are also sessions that explore other issues related to the impact of the public history enterprise on civic health and to the practice and teaching of public history.
A brief “Schedule at a Glance” of the conference is available on the NCPH web site (http://www.ncph.org), and a quick overview is presented below:
Highlights of the 2008 Meeting
Opening Public Plenary at the Louisville Free Public Library
We will be taking public history public with a presentation by Andrew Ferguson, author of Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America
Keynote Address
Ed Linenthal, Editor of the Journal of American History and Professor of History at Indiana University will speak on, “Healing Wounds, Opening Wounds: the Burdens of Remembrance.”
There are More than 40 sessions, including:
Interpreting Environmental History
Archival Heritage, Community Identity, and Political Process
Historians and the Media
Globalizing Museums and Public History
Heritage Tourism’s Impact on Community History
Clarian Health Partners Uses History to Address Vital Strategic Issues in a Turbulent Marketplace
Moving Audiences outside their Own Experiences
To Zotero, Let's Go: An Introduction to a New Open-Source Historical Research Tool
Workshops
Digitizing History – a two-day workshop on creating historical content for the web, using XML, and working with web designers and technologists
Measuring Performance – a one-day workshop on practical ways in which public history professionals can integrate performance measures to enhance all aspects of organizational effectiveness
Job Hunting: Improve Your Skills – a half-day workshop on improving your chances and emphasizing the essentials when looking for your first position or seeking to advance your career
Walk this Way to a Career in Public History – a walking tour to three museums to meet with practicing public historians in their work settings
Presidential Address
President Bill Bryans, Oklahoma State University, will speak on ” A Tale of Two Bills: Racism, Anti-Semitism, and the Sensibilities of a Public Historian”
Saturday Dinner
Robert Sutton, the new Chief Historian of the National Park Service, will speak about interpreting the Civil War
Capstone Plenary
"What do Public Histories of Union and Disunion offer Twenty-first Century America?” Rose Diaz, University of New Mexico; Calinda Lee, Loyola University Chicago; Ed Linenthal, Indiana University Bloomington; and Bob Weible, The State Museum of Pennsylvania
See http://www.ncph.org for more information.
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