Remembering Cliff Kuhn

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Cliff Kuhn with outgoing National Council on Public History director John Dichtl, Nashville, April 2015. Photo credit: Cathy Stanton

Cliff Kuhn with outgoing National Council on Public History director John Dichtl, Nashville, April 2015. Photo credit: Cathy Stanton

Like so many of my friends and colleagues across the full spectrum of the historical profession, I am thankful for having known Cliff Kuhn. His death three weeks ago took us all by surprise. Cliff radiated vitality–intellectual, spiritual and personal. He was known for cycling every morning from his home in Atlanta’s Virginia Highland neighborhood to his office at Georgia State University in the heart of downtown. He seemed like a man on the verge of a very long life.

His profound influence is reflected in these moving tributes by GSU colleague Alex Sayf Cummings, Atlanta’s Creative Loafing newspaper, NPR affiliate WABE, and the Oral History Association.

Although I met Cliff for the first time just a year and half ago, on the eve of my move to Atlanta, I count him among my dearest mentors. We bonded over a shared hometown and an abiding faith in the potential of public, digital, and oral historical methods. Every passing conversation with Cliff led me to reconsider ideas central to my various projects in a new light. Cliff epitomized the ideal of the public historian. He valued shared inquiry for the purpose of deepening our collective understanding of the past. For Cliff, a multivocal, multivalent approach to historical understanding was not just one way to approach historical research, it was the only appropriate way to consider the past. On top of that, he had a flair for storytelling that inspired passion in his listeners. He was a true history communicator.

On Thanksgiving this year, I would like to invite anyone who knew Cliff or was influenced by his work to share why they are thankful for having had Cliff Kuhn as a part of their lives. We will endeavor to do our small part for Cliff’s legacy by preserving those memories here at History@Work.

~ Adina Langer is Curator of the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University. You can follow her on Twitter @artiflection and on the web.

is Curator of the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University. You can follow her on Twitter @artiflection and on the web. – See more at: http://ncph.org/history-at-work/reflections-on-relocating-part-2/#sthash.1HwFvZKV.dpuf
is Curator of the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University. You can follow her on Twitter @artiflection and on the web. – See more at: http://ncph.org/history-at-work/reflections-on-relocating-part-2/#sthash.1HwFvZKV.dpuf

 

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