CAST 205 - Remembering in Public: Memorials, Markers, Cemeteries, Museums

FC SSCI CD

4 credits
What story about the past is told on the memorial landscape of the United States-and on and around Oberlin’s campus? What is the relationship between power and the production of history? How do we leave space for silences and absences? This course will introduce students to the theory and practice of Public Humanities-an interdisciplinary field dedicated to intellectual work that engages with communities and historical work beyond and outside of the academy. Our analysis of the questions at the heart of this course will include a survey of public humanities work-including preservation and interpretation, museums and memorials, archives and knowledge production, and community engagement-alongside readings that raise theoretical and historiographical questions and challenges about memorialization. Field trip(s) required.

This course is appropriate for new students.