January 2, 2021

History in the Public Sphere: An Introduction

INSTRUCTORS

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The aim of this course is to explore, from a comparative and transnational perspective, the process of the creation, presentation, and dissemination of historical knowledge to the general public, customary referred to as “public history.” The course focuses on the main fields, methods, and practices of public history. It addresses the following questions: How is history created and recreated for the public? Who are the main societal actors involved in these processes? What are the main forms of interaction and dissemination? What is the relationship between “academic history” and “public” or “applied history”? What is the state of development and prospects of the future of public history?

The course takes a multi-faceted approach to public history, to include the following fields: professional history outside academia, popular history (as forms of ‘non-academic’ history), applied history (connected with real social issues), and the uses and abuses of history by political actors, as reflected in memory politics, museums and monuments.

To cover all these facets, the course will critically review a great variety of fields of manifestation of public history, from diverse countries, continents and historical periods, with a focus on forms of collective memory, projects on preservation of historic heritage; public archives; digital history and centers for the documentation, collection and recording of historical data or oral testimonies, etc.

LIST OF CLASSES

Week 1: Introduction

Class 1: What is Public History? Definitions, Methods, and Practices
Class 2: The Historian as a Public Figure

Week 2: History and Public Education

Class 3: Textbooks and their Authors
Class 4: History, Historians, and Ethics

Week 3: The Concept of the Public Sphere

Class 5: Habermas, Modernity and the Public Sphere
Class 6: Habermas and his Critics: New Perspectives
Class 7: Music History Walk in Budapest

Week 4: History in National Museums

Class 8: The Rise of National Museums
Class 9: Museums in the Twenty-first Century

Week 5: Places of Memory: Heritage and History

Class 10: Cultural Heritage and Public Memory
Class 11: Archival Traditions and Practices
Class 12: Site Visit to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in connection to the Hungarian National Holiday

Week 6: Journalism

Class 13: History and Film
Class 14: History and Journalism

Week 7: No Classes.

Mid-Term Report

Week 8: History and Film

Class 15: Vienna City Walk. Memory Politics in Public Space
Class 16: Memory Politics in post WW II-Austria

Week 9: Oral History and Memory

Class 17: Oral History: An Introduction
Class 18: Political Propaganda in Totalitarian Regimes: The Case of Nazi Germany

Week 10: Biography and Community Histories

Class 19: Biography and Public History
Class 20: Community History

Week 11: Digital Transformations

Class 21: Digital History
Class 22: History in Simulation and Re-Enactment

Week 12: 21st Century Transformations of the Public Sphere

Class 23: Transformations of the Public Sphere
Class 24: Summing Up