This week our class was able to attend a talk sponsored by
Temple Library's series: Beyond The Page. The program we attended was called
Shared Authority: Public History, Social Curation, and Social Practice. This talk
was hosted by Michael Frisch, Cindy Little, and Erin Bernard; three historians
who have focused their work on public history. Each panelist discussed the meaning
of Frisch's idea of shared authority. The idea of this talk was to
have a conversation about the ways these historians have created socially
engaged projects which question who has the authority when it comes to history.
These projects were mobile projects, where the history comes to the public, and
in turn gives authority back to the public. In the past, the task of preserving
and interpreting history was exclusively for historians or scholars. Today, many
museum exhibits and oral history projects are calling on the public to share authority
on who's story is told. Projects like Erin Bernard's History Truck are vital
because they come straight to the public. The great thing about the history
truck is that it doesn't simply target affluent neighborhoods, the truck aims
to record the stories of those who so often do not have a voice in history. This
type of history pushes back on the "us" and "them"
dichotomy which was utilized by museums and historians alike in the past.
Public historians are attempting to work with
the public to exhibit and share history that matters to the people.
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| Michael Frisch Courtesy of <http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/about/authors/frisch/> |
Michael Frisch's work, both his book A Shared Authority &
his work in Buffalo, has inspired me in relation to working directly with the
public and oral history. I would also love to one day be able to combine oral
history, with work like Cindy Little's. Little was able to work with women's
history at a pivotal moment - in the 1970s and 80s. Oral history is such a
tricky field, because you always have to be both cautious and compassionate. During
the question and answer portion of the program, I asked the panelists how they
approach difficult histories. All of the speakers mentioned ways in which they
had been confronted by emotional members of the communities they worked with. I
really wanted to know where exactly the line was drawn as professional
historians - is it okay to get emotional? Frisch made a great point in saying
that it is okay to engage with emotion as historians, and to climb down from
the ivory tower. The key is to confront the fact that you come from a different
background (than your informant or "the public") up front. He said
that once you both establish that you come from different places, you can move
on and get down to work. For the last several weeks, I have been tormented by
the question of emotions in history. Some classmates believe there is no place
for emotion in the field because it compromises both professionalism and
unbiased work, while others believe that exploring this aspect of history
enhances the study of people in the past. I am definitely more inclined to tap
into the emotional and human side of public history. As we've read in previous
weeks: people want to feel connected to history... they want to feel intimacy with the past. If people aren't being moved or intrigued by history, I believe it can be done better.
Above is a short video (Courtesy of Youtube) about Frisch's new app, pixstori. This app is meant to allow anyone to create and share oral histories accompanied by a picture. This app seems great in theory, but in practice I feel that it will not be totally effective. I believe this app will cause many problems with citation, sourcing, and copyright issues, as well as authenticity in many senses of the word. What do you think?
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