Public History News Update

Here’s what’s up at the National Council on Public History.

 

Registration Now Open! -- Milwaukee 2012 Meeting
Online registration has begun for the NCPH/Organization of American Historians joint conference, April 18-22. Members of both groups receive the member discount and will get a printed Program by mail in January.  http://annualmeeting.oah.org/registration/

NCPH Election has Begun 

Eleven souls are on the slate for the 2012 Election of the vice president, Board, and Nominating Committee.  NCPH members received an email (Nov.30) containing a link to the online ballot.  (Please contact ncph@iupui.edu if you believe your membership is current but you did not receive the message.) Candidate statements are at http://ncph.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012-Candidate-Bios.pdf.  Your vote counts!

We Want Your Nominations for the Steering Committee of IFPH

Created in 2010, the International Federation for Public History encourages and coordinates research, practice, and teaching in Public History.  NCPH provides key support for the IFPH and is assisting with the elections for its Steering Committee. Candidates should make themselves known by the 9 January 2012 by contacting Thomas Cauvin (member of the Nominating Committee; thomas.cauvin@eui.eu), highlighting the position(s) they wish to apply for and include a short biography (less than 200 words). Read more at the IFPH website: http://ncph.org/cms/international-federation-for-public-history/  
 
Jobs for Historians - New Session at the AHA 
Public Historians will be represented in a new session, “Jobs for Historians: Approaching the Crisis from the Demand Side,” which the American Historical Association has added to its annual meeting, to take place Friday, January 6 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Sheraton’s Chicago Ballroom VII.   AHA President Anthony Grafton is chair of the session, while  Jesse Lemisch (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY), Edward Balleisen (Duke University), John Dichtl (National Council on Public History), and Lynn Hunt (UCLA) make up the panel.  http://aha.confex.com/aha/2012/webprogram/Session7309.html

CFP: Academic Museums

We invite international submissions for inclusion in this forthcoming book being published by MuseumsEtc in late spring of 2012.

College and university museums originated out of the desire to teach with, and learn from, original objects. These museums today aim to be active participants in the teaching life of their campus communities and vital sites for learning, interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration, and professional training in many disciplines. Academic museums differ from their freestanding counterparts in that they can express their mandates in broader and more innovative ways. They can, for example, install exhibitions that explore controversial topics or artists under the
“umbrella” of education. They can create small, focused shows with little pressure to produce blockbuster exhibitions. They can include campus voices in exhibitions, and foster critical dialogues within and beyond the classroom. And they can explore the teaching possibilities of a broad range of objects and exhibit those objects in new or unorthodox ways.

We welcome submissions – of between 2000 to 6000 words – that examine successful strategies, tactics and activities within the academic museum community internationally. We are particularly interested in practical experiences which are innovative or pioneering in nature, and which may be capable of being applied within the wider museum community.

Academic Museums will be edited by Stefanie S. Jandl and Mark S. Gold, both of whom have long-standing professional interest and experience in the challenges and opportunities unique to academic museums.

If you are interested in being considered as a contributor, please send an abstract (up to 250 words) and a short biography to both the editors (AMEditors@gmail.com) and the publishers (books@museumsetc.com) by 31 December 2011. Enquiries should also be sent to these addresses.

The full Call for Papers can be found here: http://bit.ly/acadmus.

Deadlines are as follows:
Abstracts: due 31 December 2011
Contributors notified: by 7 January 2012
Completed papers: due 25 February 2012

Topics might include but are not limited to:
* developing exhibitions that explore controversial topics or artists
* cultivating critical dialogues within and beyond the classroom
* engaging a diverse community and including campus voices in museum programming
* how a college/university museum is uniquely positioned for innovation, risk-taking, and challenging audiences
* the museum’s role as a site for interdisciplinary teaching and learning
* how the mission of the museum relates to, or conflicts with, the mission of the parent institution
* how trustees resolve the tension between preserving the museum’s collection and sustaining the broader educational mission
* the value and opportunities in object-based learning 
 * cultivating relationships with faculty across disciplines and helping
them integrate a museum’s resources into their teaching
* building a collection appropriate to the educational institution and its audiences
* organizing exhibitions with faculty members and students
* how a college/university museum defines its role in the community
* the unique opportunities that academic museums offer for experiential learning and mentoring students
* fundraising and donor relations within a larger non-profit entity 
* promoting the value of a museum to administrators and trustees
* how to successfully compete for funds
* securing outside grants as a museum with a parent organization
* case studies of recent or current innovative and pioneering programs

CFP; Museums & Social Issues

The deadline is approaching for submitting articles or reviews for the next issue of the journal Museums & Social Issues. Tentatively titled "Eating Together," the issue will examine the intersection of museum practice and access to and changing traditions associated with food. We would like to highlight programing and exhibits exploring food access, eating practices, sustainability, preservation of heritage seeds, traditional cuisines, culinary science and other creative uses of food. We are also interested in articles from outside the museum field, dealing with research, theory or innovative projects that connect people and communities to practices of eating. Please submit full articles (ideal) or well developed prospectuses to
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com:80/msi  by December 20, 2011. For more information, contact the editor at MSIuw@uw.edu or Morriss8@uw.edu.

Call for Nominations: Steering Commitee of the International Federation for Public History

The International Federation for Public History was created in 2010 and aims at encouraging, promoting, and coordinating research, practice, and teaching in Public History. Public History is a field in the historical sciences made up of professionals who undertake historical work in a variety of public and private settings for different kinds of audiences. Public historians base their research on a wide range of material culture, visual, oral, aural, digital, written and other traditional and non-traditional forms of historical evidence. Individuals, societies, institutes, and academic programs, as well as other organizations primarily concerned with public history activities, may become members of the Federation.

The Federation wishes to elect its Steering Committee which consists of six positions to be held for a six-year period: a Chair, Vice-Chair, Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, and two additional at-large delegates (for a description of the corresponding responsibility, see the attached By-Laws). The new Steering Committee will meet at the 2012 Digital Humanities Symposium in Luxembourg in March 2012 and will further define the roles and responsibilities. It is critical to hold the elections by the end of January 2012. Therefore, candidates should make themselves known by the 9 January 2012. They should contact Thomas Cauvin (member of the Nominating Committee) (thomas.cauvin@eui.eu), highlighting the position(s) they wish to apply for and include a short biography (less than 200 words). Finally those who wish to become more involved in the Federation but do not intend to serve in the Steering Committee can also contact Thomas Cauvin for further details.

Public History News

Here’s what’s up at the National Council on Public History.


December Newsletter is Here
Public History News this month includes Viewsharing, History Ventures and entrepreneurial thinking, reports from our many active committees, board actions, news about the International Federation for Public History, and more. Members’ print copies are in the mail. http://ncph.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/December_2011_Newsletter.pdf

Registration for 2012 Annual Meeting Opens Soon
Later this month the online registration will begin for the 2012 NCPH/Organization of American Historians joint conference. Members of both groups receive the member discount and will get a printed Program by mail in January.

NCPH Election has Begun
Members received an email (Nov.30) containing a link to the online ballot. (Please contact ncph@iupui.edu if you believe your membership is current but you did not receive the message.) Candidate statements are at http://ncph.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012-Candidate-Bios.pdf.

New Freedom of Information Support
The U.S. National Archives Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) – the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Ombudsman – launched a new online case management system on November 28. Read more at the National Coalition for History website: http://historycoalition.org/2011/12/01/foia-ombudsman-launches-on-line-case-management-system/

New Posts on Off the Wall
NCPH’s blog for critical reviews of exhibit practice…http://ncphoffthewall.blogspot.com/
- Participatory Mapping: Place-Making as Process in Montréal’s Mile End
- The Toynbee Tiles: Viral Exhibitry from the Pre-Internet World
- The Reality of Fiction in Post-Pinochet Chile
- History, History Everywhere

Jobs
Searching for or posting a public history job or internship on the NCPH website is free! http://ncph.org/cms/careers-training/

www.ncph.org
Putting history to work in the world

Cultures of Anatomical Collections Conference

Leiden University, 15 – 17 February 2012

The conference ‘Cultures of Anatomical Collections’ will explore anatomical preparations and collections (preparations of human material as well as wax and other models) as important parts of cultural heritage. This means that we treat them in a similar way as we would examine other historical artifacts stored in today’s museum. Although the history of anatomy and anatomical illustrations has been a popular topic in the history of medicine during the last decade, the history of its material remains has been somewhat neglected. And yet, in particular when taking into account recent historiographies of materiality and medical practices, it offers challenging interdisciplinary questions on the history of anatomy as a whole.

The conference addresses questions such as:

How do the technical details of anatomical preparations tell us about the ideas of their maker; how do ideas on beauty and perfection shape preparations; how were preparations handled and used for teaching purposes; how does the interest of non-medical audiences shape anatomical preparations? On collections as a whole we can ask: How are particular collections build up; how do decisions of curators affect the build-up of collections; how does the housing of a collection affect its outlook and popularity?

Keynote speakers: Andrew Cunningham, Ruth Richardson, Anita Guerrini, Sam Alberti, Simon Chaplin and Anna Märker.

Registration deadline: 1 February 2012.

For the program and registration form contact Rina Knoeff at conference@culturesofcollecting.nl

Public History News Update

NCPH is a proud member of the National Coalition for History, which has issued the following alert.

FY ’12 Federal Funding Decisions At Final Stage–Action Needed Now! 
The House and Senate are concluding year-end negotiations over Fiscal Year 2012 spending levels. It is important if you care about funding for agencies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Historical Publications & Records Commission, and Department of Education programs such as Teaching American History grants that you contact your Members of Congress as soon as possible.http://historycoalition.org/2011/12/02/fy-12-federal-funding-decisions-at-final-stage-action-needed-now/
  
NCPH Election has Begun
Members received an email (Nov.30) containing a link to the online ballot.  (Please contact ncph@iupui.edu if you believe your membership is current but you did not receive the message.)  Candidate statements are at http://ncph.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012-Candidate-Bios.pdf

www.ncph.org Putting history to work in the world