Author: Doing History in Public

  • Representing Queer History

    Representing Queer History

    Fifty years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, Nailya Shamgunova (@nailyas_) reflects on how public exhibitions have engaged with this event. This year marks the 50th anniversary of partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. It is an important milestone for queer history, and as such it was commemorated in various forms throughout…

  • Solving the Historical Puzzle of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum

    Solving the Historical Puzzle of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum

    By Atlanta Rae Neudorf Approaching the past as an historian is comparable to trying to solve a puzzle whose pieces are constantly changing shape. An element which momentarily appears to fit snugly in place comes suddenly into focus as glaringly wrong when new evidence comes to light. Whilst frustrating at times, these moments of clarity…

  • Should we learn from history?

    Should we learn from history?

    By Fred Smith – @Fred_E_Smith “…all cities and all peoples are and ever have been animated by the same desires and the same passions; so that it is easy, by diligent study of the past, to forsee what is likely to happen in the future” – Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, c. 1517.[1] The idea…

  • Conflict, Memory and Reconciliation: ‘The Vietnam War’

    Conflict, Memory and Reconciliation: ‘The Vietnam War’

    By Helen Sunderland (@hl_sunderland) The recent success of The Vietnam War, a television documentary co-directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, shows the enduring legacy of the conflict in popular memory. Broadcast as a ten-hour series in the UK on BBC Four and originally aired with an even longer running time on PBS, the series…