Community‑Centered Public History: Storytelling, Access, and Ethical Practice

PROPOSAL TYPE

Community Viewpoints

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
RELATED TOPICS
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Place
  • Public Engagement
ABSTRACT

Recent increases in migration to the United States, particularly from crisis‑affected countries such as Syria, Sudan, and Iraq, have raised challenges related to language access and participation in public life. Read More

Shared Authority in 2027

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
RELATED TOPICS
  • Museum/Exhibits
  • Public Engagement
  • Social Justice
ABSTRACT

Much of public history practice has been based around the concept of “shared authority,” in which public historians work in conjunction with communities to define and collaborate on historical interpretations and projects. Read More

Holding the Line—or Not—at US Public Museums

PROPOSAL TYPE

Structured Conversation or Roundtable

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
RELATED TOPICS
  • Government Historians
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Reflections on the Field
ABSTRACT

How have museums that receive public funding held the line—or not—against vocal critics who have demanded significant changes to exhibitions at those museums? Read More

On The Same Team: State Historical Societies and Local Museums

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Participants
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
  • Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
  • Advocacy
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Reflections on the Field
  • Teaching and Training
ABSTRACT

This roundtable would, ideally, be a mix of representatives from state historical societies and local history museums discussing how they have collaborated to improve public history in their area. Read More

Rethinking Revolutionary Memory: Pedagogy, Public History, and Politics

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Participants
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
  • Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
  • Memory
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Preservation
  • Public Engagement
ABSTRACT

As we near the American Revolution’s 250th anniversary, we are still grappling with how the memory of revolutionary figures like George Washington and other founding fathers, have been preserved and re-thought by public history professionals since the end of the Revolution. Read More

Revolutionary Displays? Museums, Violence, and the Struggle Against Indifference

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
  • Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
  • Advocacy
  • Memory
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Social Justice
ABSTRACT

On April 23, 2025, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan opened Documenting the Crime: Eyewitness Records of the Armenian Genocide, a temporary exhibition drawing on testimonies from diplomats, missionaries, journalists, and relief workers. Read More

Out of the Archives: Innovative Methods for Sharing LGBTQIA+ Archives

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable or Lightning Round

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
  • Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
  • Archives
  • Memory
  • Museums/Exhibits
ABSTRACT

This session aims to examine creative methods for sharing LGBTQIA+ history that utilizing growing networks of community and/or museum-based LGBTQIA+ archives. Read More

What is Reenactment?

PROPOSAL TYPE

Roundtable

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
RELATED TOPICS
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Reflections on the Field
  • Theory in Practice
ABSTRACT

This proposal seeks to help answer the question ‘what is reenactment?’ It does this by investigating past meanings of the word. Read More

Starting with Stories: Building Exhibits in Reverse

PROPOSAL TYPE

Experiential

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
  • Seeking General Feedback and Interest
RELATED TOPICS
  • Museums/Exhibits
  • Oral History
  • Public Engagement
ABSTRACT

Revolution reshapes societies, but how we document, preserve, and interpret its impact shapes collective memory. This presentation explores “reverse exhibit development,” using oral history as the foundation rather than the frame. Read More

Radio That Listens to You

PROPOSAL TYPE

Open to Feedback

SEEKING
  • Seeking Additional Presenters
RELATED TOPICS
  • Digital
  • Material Culture
  • Museums
  • Oral History
  • Public Engagement
ABSTRACT

In 1973, Springfield was only one of four state capitals without a public radio station. WSSR went on the air January 3rd, 1975. Read More