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Introduction to Public Humanities Syllabus

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AMST 403/AMST 903a/HIST 746a, Introduction to Public Humanities Ryan André Brasseaux [email protected] To make an appointment call: 203.432.0555 Davenport College Dean's Office What is the relationship between knowledge produced in the university and the circulation of ideas among a broader public, between academic expertise on the one hand and non-professionalized ways of knowing and thinking on the other? This seminar provides an introduction to various institutional relations and to the modes of inquiry, interpretation, and presentation by which practitioners in the humanities seek to invigorate the flow of information and ideas among a public more broadly conceived than the academy, its classrooms, and its exclusive readership of specialists. The course is organized around the six pillars (topical concentrations) structuring the public humanities program at Yale: museums and collections; space and place; history and the public; public art; documentary; digital humanities. In addition to core readings and discussions, the seminar includes presentations by practitioners who are currently engaged in different aspects of the public humanities. Participants also collaborate in developing an installation and virtual exhibit devoted to some aspect(s) of New Haven culture, politics, history, etc. COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Attendance and participation is required for all seminar discussions, practitioner’s colloquia, and film screenings. Grading is heavily dependent upon participation. Students will be also be evaluated on their ability to apply concepts and develop thoughtful questions derived from the readings into class discussion when practitioners visit. Reading Responses: A 500 word reading response is due Wednesday night before class at 10 PM. Responses should be posted on canvas. Site Reading: A 700-1000 word interpretation/close reading of a space in New Haven beyond the confines of Yale, which might include (though not limited to) the New Haven Green, City Hall, the New Haven Museum, Amistad memorial, a restaurant, the city bus, a particular street or neighborhood, etc. Observe carefully the sites you explore, documenting the details of your experiences and thinking seriously about how space and place, sites of memory, and narratives function in the communities we explore. How do issues of space, geography, emotion, memory, self-identification, and a variety of other slippery concepts play into how we might define New Haven? This exercise is not collaborative. Rather, this site reading is meant to be an individual student’s engagement with space and place that we will later fold into the collaborative project. That said, individual students should speak with others inhabiting the space to learn more about how that locale functions as a social sphere within the community. 1 Collaborative project: All students will participate in a collaborative capstone project that will be presented publically in the city of New Haven. The parameters of the project are open/negotiable and can take the form of a museum installation, documentary film, radio emission, interactive website, etc. In 2010 the Public Humanities group executed a smashing installation for the 100th anniversary of one of New Haven’s branch libraries; we followed that up in 2011 with an installation in the New Haven Public Library devoted to the history of New Haven’s waterfront. In 2012, students created a website devoted to food trucks and the culinary landscape of the city (www.newhavenfoodroutes.com). In terms of its method, execution, and design this inherently multimedia project might include ethnography/oral history (interviewing New Haven residents, immigrants, party representatives, Planned Parenthood volunteers, or political activists, for example). The group can incorporate photographic, video, or audio documentary, archival research, museum installation, etc. to realize the project. Students are expected to workshop project ideas both in-and-outside of class. Deciding on form and content takes considerably more time than actually executing the project. Students are expected to define the scope and aims of the project. It will be up to each individual to define and execute a meaningful contribution to the whole. READINGS [books are available at Yale Bookstore, other materials will be made available in pdf format] Douglas W. Rae, City: Urbanism and Its End (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). 2 SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS Week 1, August 30: Introduction Foundations: Theorizing “Public(s)" and “Humanities" Week 2, September 6: Defining Terms Michael Warner, "Public and Private" and "Publics and Counterpublics," in Publics and Counterpublics (Cambridge, MA: Zone Books, 2005), 21-64, 65-123. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, "The Power in the Story," Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 1-30. Geoffrey Galt Harpham, "Beneath and Beyond the 'Crisis in the Humanities," in The Humanities and the Dream of America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 27- 42. Michael S. Roth, "Introduction" in Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 1-18. NEPH Public Humanities White Paper Pillar I: Documentary Studies Week 3, September 13: Ways of Seeing, Ways of Framing: Documentary Robert Coles, "The Work: Locations in Theory," in Doing Documentary Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 19-48. Andrew Horton, “A Well Spent Life: Les Blank’s Celebrations on Film,” Film Quarterly 35, No. 3 (Spring, 1982), 25-34. [AVAILABLE ON JSTOR] Obligatory Film Screening: Les Blank dir., Always For Pleasure, 1978, 58 min. https://yale.kanopystreaming.com/video/always-pleasure Errol Morris dir., Team Spirt, 2012, 8:12 http://davecanning.com/espn-team-spirit Errol Morris Interview, 5:03 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy2ScUoXWdU -------- Pillar II: Museums and Collections Week 4, September 20: Conflicted Narratives, Master Narratives: Museum Studies Laurel Thatcher Ulrich et al, “Introduction: Thinking with Things,” in Tangible Things: Making History Through Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1-20. Richard H. Kohn, "History and the Culture Wars: The Case of the Smithsonian Institution's Enola Gay Exhibition," Journal of American History 82, No. 3 (Dec., 1995), 1036-1063. [AVAILABLE ON JSTOR] Patricia Pierce Erikson, "Decolonizing the 'Nation's Attic:' The National Museum of the American Indian and the Politics of Knowledge-Making in a National Space," in The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations, eds., Amy Lonetree and Amanda J. Cobb (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 43-83. [ONLINE BOOK RESOURCE THROUGH YALE LIBRARY] Cynthia Chavez Lamar, "Collaborative Exhibit Development at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian," in The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations, eds., Amy Lonetree and Amanda J. Cobb (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 144-164. [ONLINE BOOK RESOURCE THROUGH YALE LIBRARY] FIELD TRIP: NEW HAVEN MUSEUM ---- Beyond the Bubble Week 5, September 27: New Haven: Elm City, Model City Douglas W. Rae, City: Urbanism and Its End (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). FIELD TRIP: BUS TOUR OF NEW HAVEN WITH JUNTA SITE READING DUE IN CLASS (20 SEPT 2017) ------ 4 EXCURSION TO CHILE PEPPER FIESTA (SEPT 29, 2017)--BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDENS SPECIAL GUEST: GRAMMY-WINNING FESTIVAL HEADLINERS, LOST BAYOU RAMBLERS --------- Pillar III: Public Art Week 6, October 4: Public Folklore: The Politics of Authenticity Robert Baron, "'All Power to the Periphery': The Public Folklore Thought of Alan Lomax," Journal of Folklore Research 49, No. 3 (September/December 2012), 275-317. [AVAILABLE ON JSTOR] Richard Bauman and Patricia Sawin, "The Politics of Participation in Folklife Festivals," Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, eds. Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1991), 288-314. William S. Walker, "'We Don't Live Like That Anymore': Native Peoples at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife, 1970-1976," American Indian Quarterly 35, No. 4 (Fall 2011): 479-514. [AVAILABLE ON JSTOR] Helen A. Regis and Shana Walton, "Producing the Folk at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival," Journal of American Folklore 121, No. 482 (Fall 2008): 400-440. [AVAILABLE ON JSTOR] ---------- Pillar IV: Digital Humanities Week 7, October 11: Authority & the Creation of Public Knowledge Kathleen Fitzpatrick, "The Humanities, Done Digitally," http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/30 (1/14/15) 5 Anne Burdick et al., "The Social Life of the Digital Humanities," in Digital Humanities (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012), 73-98. Thomas Leitch, "Introduction: The Battle of the Books," and "Paradoxes of Authority," in Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority, and Liberal Education In the Digital Age (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2014), 1-15; 31-56. FIELD TRIP: YALE DIGITAL HUMANITIES LAB ----- Pillars V: History and the Public Week 8, October 25: Oral History Rebecca Sharpless, "The History of Oral History" In History of Oral History: Foundations and Methodology, eds. Thomas Lee Charlton, Lois E. Myers, Rebecca Sharpless (AltaMira, 2007), 9-33. Alessandro Portelli, "What Makes Oral History Different?" In The Oral History Reader (Routledge, 2016), 48-58. Lynn Abrams, "Introduction: Turning Theory Into Practice," and "The Peculiarities of Oral History" in Oral History Theory (Routledge, 2010), 1-17; 18-32. Mary Marshall Clark, "The September 11, 2001,
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