Tag Archive

training

The Master's Tools, 2.0

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In her thought-provoking post from November 2012, Mary Rizzo opened up a conversation about the relationship between the rapidly growing field of digital humanities and public history. Reflecting on a recent THATcamp meeting, Rizzo concluded that existing divisions between the producers and the critical thinkers of digital humanities projects had the potential to re-inscribe gender and racial hierarchies. Read More

My dark secret, or How I learned to stop hating American history and start loving it

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Several years back, I was a new public history practitioner working for the National Park Service (NPS).  A series of fortuitous events led me to the NPS: a stint at a historical society, a freelance job for the Smithsonian, an informational interview with the NPS Office of Diversity and Special Projects, and a quick gig with a partner organization. Read More

Student consumer's guide

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ship in heavy seaIn September of last year,History@Work published a series of posts by Robert Weyeneth, president of NCPH and Director of the Public History Program at the University of South Carolina. Collectively titled “A Perfect Storm,” the posts addressed what Weyeneth identified as a broadly shared concern among public history professionals (inside and outside academia) that a jobs crisis exists in the field. Read More

Digital Sandbox: Building a community of digital humanists

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There is a misconception in our American culture that young professionals are proficient at using technology. However, discussions among historians, humanists, and prospective employers indicate that many public history graduates are entering the field without practical training or consideration of the complex intersection between digital technology and public history. Read More

Tools for digital history: Google Map Engine Lite

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Google mapThe turn to spatial history has been aided by the explosion of digital mapping tools. While there are many options for mapping out there (including HistoryPin as described by Aaron Cowan in a History@Work post earlier this year), one look at the projects being completed by leaders in the field like the Stanford Visualization Lab is both inspiring and terrifying. Read More

Community engagement across disciplinary boundaries

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For most of my experience as a public-historian-in-training, I did not often think about the arts in any purposeful way.  I played in an orchestra from elementary school through college, have a not-so-secret love for musicals (my roommates are probably tired of hearing me sing Disney songs in the shower!), Read More

Reading the artifact: From inquiry to interpretation

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Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.

On the final day of Reading Artifacts Summer Institute (RASI), each group was required to present its artifact to an audience of other participants, museum staff, and volunteers. Throughout the morning, artifacts that had initially seemed ambiguous and daunting at the start of the week were slowly separated into layers of meaning and their hidden histories were recounted. Read More