Tag Archive

commemoration

Private memories, public memorials: the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide

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As part of my dissertation research on the memorialization of the 1971 Bangladesh Genocide, I have encountered silences in related memorials and in the archives. These silences have led me to ask: What role might oral testimonies play in remedying the silences that surround official attempts to memorialize mass atrocity crimes? Read More

Editor’s Corner: Complicating Authority

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Editors’ Note: We publish the editor’s introduction to the May 2023 issue of The Public Historian here. The entire issue is available online to National Council on Public History members and to others with subscription access.

This issue brings several articles that explore the concept of authority in public history, an idea that has long shaped debates about how we define our field. Read More

Editor’s corner: reimagining anniversaries

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Editors’ Note: We publish the editor’s introduction to the November 2021 issue of The Public Historian here. The entire issue is available online to National Council on Public History members and to others with subscription access.

This issue introduces a new ongoing feature, Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution, a collaboration between the National Council on Public History (NCPH) and the National Park Service (NPS). Read More

Commemorative Intersections of Carceral History in Lorton, Virginia

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On more than 3,200 acres of land in South Fairfax County, twenty miles from Washington, DC, there is a patchwork of new housing developments and recreational facilities. Dispersed throughout these new features on the landscape are old brick buildings that constitute the Workhouse Arts Center, a not-for-profit organization supporting artist studios and gallery spaces. Read More

The National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C.

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Public monuments chart development within a cultural form at the same time they commemorate historical events. Maya Lin found inspiration in British architect Edwin Lutyens’s enduring World War I monuments when she designed her brilliant Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1981-82). In contrast, the World War I Memorial recently inaugurated with the raising of its first flag in Pershing Park on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D. Read More

Centering Indigenous voices at the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum

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In January 2020, the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum opened in Carson City, Nevada. Since the boarding school’s closure in 1980, former students and their families had urged the state of Nevada to commemorate alumni experiences as a means of recognizing their trauma and need for healing. Read More

Chicago 1919: a citywide conversation about past and present racial violence

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Editor’s note: This essay is part of a series of reflective posts written by winners of awards intended to be given out at the NCPH 2020 annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The “Chicago 1919” project, organized by the Newberry Library, received 2020 Outstanding Public History Project Award. Read More