MEGAN CULLEN TEWELL, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
Proposal Type
Traditional Panel
Seeking
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
Related Topics
- Memory
- Place
- Reflections on the Field
Abstract
This panel offers an opportunity to discuss the interpretation and implications of paranormal public history, including ethical, financial, social, and environmental considerations. Exhibits, events, and/or programs at many historic sites address paranormal topics or themes, often in a historical context. How are public historians reconciling “the paranormal” with “the historical?” What is the relationship between paranormal public history and entertainment/education? How does paranormal public history affect visitors, stakeholders, and even the site itself, especially considering the sensitive histories of many of these places? How can sites characterized as “haunted,” willingly or not, leverage paranormal public history to create change?
Description
Like dark tourism, paranormal public history often takes place at historic sites associated with death, tragedy, and suffering, and represents a popular form of historical storytelling. Our goal is to analyze the widespread practice of paranormal public history (in its numerous iterations) at historic sites such as cemeteries, asylums, prisons, house museums, battlefields, shipyards, and plantations. At this time, the proposed panel welcomes a variety of potential topics and themes related to paranormal public history, including familiar discussions of conscientious interpretation, material culture, and visitor motivation. However, we also want to investigate other aspects of public history’s relationship with dark tourism, such as financial considerations, memory, environmental sustainability, and community/institutional partnerships. Above all, we are especially interested in paranormal public history’s ability to transcend the realms of entertainment and escapism, and serve as a catalyst of change. This topic directly addresses questions central to the NCPH 2020 conference, including how we steward stories, material culture, and spaces, as well as the ways in which public historians commemorate. We are seeking additional panelists interested in collaborating on this topic, as well as suggestions for refining our proposal. Our aim is to push the discussion of paranormal public history (and dark tourism generally) into new, creative, and thought-provoking territory.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Megan Cullen Tewell, [email protected]
All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 1, 2019. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Hello hello! As I promised on Twitter, here I am getting in touch and commenting on the proposal.
Three of the main things I am interested in/would want to see addressed are:
1 – Ethics as mentioned in the proposal. How can we sensitively tell stories about dark history and injustices to people. One thing that immediately springs to mind is the prevalence of mental health institutions/sanitariums as spaces for haunted tours. Can you tell the stories in such a way to engage change and conversations about similar issues today without exploiting those who suffered?
2 – Preservation – like with above, we want to preserve these places, and ghost tours or anything paranormal almost always means $$$ . When done right it can work out really well, but then how do you balance that with amateurs coming on site unauthorized and potentially doing damage (or doing damage even when authorized!)
3 – Death and museums – this is my new area of research. I am focusing mainly on human remains and the ethics of collecting remains by museums/repatriation (2018 panel in Vegas on this: Bodies and Boundaries, working on a historical perspectives manuscript). However, I am working with a partner, Dr. Trish Biers, at the Duckworth Collection at Cambridge University, on a new outreach program called Mors Mortis Museum about all things death and museums. We are interested in displays and programs, but one way I think we can really get communities engaged is holding Death Cafes or other community collaborations and educational events about “the good death” and other death-y related things with visitors. Like you say in the proposal: being a catalyst for change. How can museums (in my case) do this, using death, which is weirdly trendy.
If I can be of any help, please reach out! I’ve talked about this some on my own website, and a lot on the Mors Mortis Museum social media pages, and I love to teach these topics in my undergraduate classes, as well.
Thank you for your comment, Katie- I have enjoyed speaking with you about this project via email and appreciate your collaboration as we continue developing the panel. Looking forward to being in touch soon- take care!
Hi Megan – this sounds excellent – it is a detailed, comprehensive and well-thought through panel idea. Can you give us an idea of who else will present and what experience you all will bring to bear on this subject? Good luck!
Hello, Tanya: thanks very much for your comment and question. At this time, several potential participants have shown an interest in being a part of the panel. Many are academic scholars affiliated with universities, while others are primarily practitioners in the field (working with museums, cemeteries, etc.). We also have a nice balance of specialities, including death studies, historic preservation, the history of magic and the occult, dark tourism and collective memory, and more. We have tried our best to curate a panel that represents different regions of the US; some of the proposed presentations revolve around case studies, while others are more interested in larger theories and frameworks of dark tourism/paranormal public history. I hope that this is a satisfying answer to your question and that you will consider attending the panel during the NCPH 2020 Conference if our submission is accepted. Thank you and take care!
This sounds like a terrific session, and I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but it would be wonderful if you could get Tiya Miles, who has written extensively on this issue, involved in some way.
Thank you for this suggestion- Dr. Tiya Miles’s work has been very influential and the session would benefit from her participation in some way. We will be sure to reach out to her!
I know this is past the comment deadline, but this topic intrigues me. At my museum we recently have begun doing paranormal investigations (not as public events, but just pure investigations as the original owner died from injuries sustained at the site). The paranormal community in town is interested in partnering with us to do programs to raise awareness and $$$ for the museum. However, I have declined for what I consider my ethical reasons: respect for the deceased and/or the spirit of the deceased. Yes, we’ve had some interesting experiences, especially me personally.
Absolutely! This is one of the aspects of paranormal public history that we hope to address in the session: the relationship between ethics and economics, especially in terms of community partnerships. I hope that you will be able to attend the panel and share some of your personal experiences, if we are selected for the program. May I ask, is your site a historic house museum?