-
History in the Public Eye
By Amy Schaffman Amy is a Modern European History MPhil student in the Faculty of History. She is currently researching WWII Anglo-American relations through the lens of the overseas evacuation of children. Public history occupies a strange place within the field of history. Its non-academic components are many and varied: museums, memorials, television programs, popular…
-
“Do Not Touch”: Academics in the Museum
By Carys Brown @HistoryCarys Museums are wonderful yet bizarre places. A treasure trove of pieces of the past. Hundreds of objects, rare, fragile, ordinary, extraordinary, arranged in glass cases, beautifully isolated from their original surroundings. This perhaps slightly sterile environment allows us to appreciate the beauty and ingenuity of objects. But is this really how…
-
The British Library: Ivory Tower?
By Fred Smith @Fred_E_Smith The British Library is overflowing with young, frappuccino-supping undergraduates more interested in checking Facebook and watching Netflix than carrying out ‘serious’ research. At least this is the impression one might take from reading an article in The Times newspaper last month.[1] Several prominent academics, including former professor of Renaissance literature at the University…
-
Living, breathing, history
By Carys Brown @HistoryCarys As a lover of history, few things excite or engage me more than dusty manuscripts and stories from the past: the shocking, the inspiring, the scandalous, and even the mundane. Although my obsession may be particularly acute, it’s not unusual – as Laurence Goldman pointed out while opening the Royal Historical Society’s…
-
Finding Yourself in the Groves: Reimagining Representation at California Citrus State Historic Park
By Megan Suster The unofficial mantra of Riverside, California by the beginning of the twentieth century was ‘Citrus is king!’ Starting with Valencia oranges in the California missions in the southern half of the state, and further catalyzed by the Bahia Navel orange that came to town in 1873, the citrus industry became central to…
doinghistoryinpublic.org 