Course description: Historians play a vital role in creating an engaged and informed citizenry. This seminar provides an in-depth examination of the issues and controversies that arise for historians and the public in settings such as historic sites and museums. The seminar also serves as an introduction to research in public history, a field of scholarship with local, national, and global dimensions. Each member of the seminar will research and write a site-specific case study of a public history issue. Participants also will gain training and experience with the WordPress website platform and will participate in a collaborative research and analysis assignment using Google Drive.

Books will include:

• Dickey, A Tough Little Patch of History: Gone with the Wind and the Politics of Memory (University of Arkansas Press)
• Gobel and Daves, Commemoration in America (University of Virginia Press)
• Horton, Slavery and Public History (University of North Carolina Press)
• Kean and Martin, The Public History Reader (Routledge)
• Linenthal and Engelhardt, History Wars (Holt)
• McDonnell, Remembering the Revolution (University of Massachusetts Press)
• Tyson, The Wages of History (University of Massachusetts Press)