Course Objectives

This course explores the practice of public history in the digital realm. Students will learn what public history as an academic sub-field is, how it is influenced by internet cultures, and consider its application outside of university settings. Special emphasis will be placed on experiential learning in this course, with a focus on digital oral history as one form of public history practice. Oral history. Students will learn to research and conduct their own online oral history interview.

Among the themes covered in this course are:

• the democratic promise of community and public history
• the challenges of engaging public audiences in historical discussions
• the relationships between history and memory
• the ethical concerns that arise in the practice of public history
• the relationships between historical questions and public audiences for historical work
• how online tools can be harnessed to make accessible historical analysis freely and publicly available online