Debating U.S. History: Museums, Monuments and Public Memory

3 units

Americans have long been fascinated with physical markers of their history, and debates over the significance of past persons, places and artifacts have gained added weight in visions of the country's political, social and cultural future within the last 30 years. For example, when the New Orleans City Council sought to remove three Confederate monuments in 2017, it couldn't find contractors willing to risk public scorn. Two monuments were taken down in the middle of the night by masked workers, and the third removal was accompanied by a speech that earned Mayor Mitch Landrieu national attention (and gossip about his potential as a 2020 presidential candidate). This course looks at the ways in which public history as a field has developed in the United States, including how processes like collecting, cataloguing, researching, interpreting and teaching have an impact on popular interactions with past events. Students will assess key and heated reflective moments in American public history-like a 1994 slave auction at Colonial Williamsburg and the proposed 1995 Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian-as well as consider how historical persons, places and events are represented in their communities. This course, ultimately, will reflect on the power and responsibility inherent in remembering the past.