Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils
Columbia, SC, Thursday, May 31st - Saturday, June 2nd, 2012
Professional historians in the United States are increasingly being called upon to produce more “popular,” more accessible history. How do and how should academic historians reach popular audiences? How and to what extent is “popular” history written around the world? Does the meaning of and audience for “popular history” vary from place to place? Along with professional historians, states, elites, and a variety of interest groups have long had an interest in sponsoring, supporting, and generating historical knowledge for popular and other audiences. We seek paper and panel proposals that will consider “popular” history in its various guises and locales. How and to what extent is the interest in “popular” history genuinely new or does it have a deeper genealogy? How do and how should historians interact with television and movie production or write op-ed pieces or blogs or serve as expert witnesses? Is there such a thing as a truly “popular” history? Do we need a distinctive “popular history” and are historians
properly equipped to write it?
We especially encourage panel proposals, though individual paper proposals are welcome as well. And our interpretation of “panel” is broad: 2 or more presenters constitute a panel—chairs and commentators are optional. As at past conferences, we hope for bold yet informal presentations that will provoke lots of questions and discussion from the audience, not presenters reading papers word-for-word from a podium followed by a commentator doing the same.
Please submit proposals (brief abstract and brief CV) by December 1, 2011 to Mark Smith and Dean Kinzley, 2012 Program Chairs, at jslucas@bu.edu.
Blog Archive
Popular Posts
-
Randall Stephens It takes a certain temperament to be a historian. For example, you have to, at least on some level, enjoy rummaging throug...
-
Philip White Despite the company’s recent price increases, the decision to split its DVD delivery and streaming businesses and the lamentabl...
-
Jonathan Rees Today's guest post comes from Jonathan Rees, professor of history at Colorado State University - Pueblo. He's the auth...
-
Our first post comes from Heather Cox Richardson , professor of history at UMass, Amherst. Richardson is the author of a number of books on...
-
Randall Stephens Jean de Venette (ca. 1308-ca. 1369), a Carmelite friar in Paris, wrote about the horrifying devastation brought on by the ...
-
Heather Cox Richardson On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent his famous telegraph message, “What hath God wrought?” from the U.S. Capitol to hi...
-
History blogging is delicate proposition. I typically look for a topic which is sufficient to fill 3-5 paragraphs with perhaps that many lin...
-
Randall Stephens I regularly browse the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division for pictures to illustrate essays, forums...
-
Heather Cox Richardson One hundred and fifty years ago this weekend, 75,000 Union and about 38,000 Confederate troops massed near Sharpsburg...
-
. This from a dear friend and colleague: The History Department at San Diego State University would like to announce its fundraising efforts...