Leaving in 2 days!

I will be leaving on my first study abroad experience (though not my first time abroad!) on Wednesday! After a 9 hour flight to Frankfurt, a 5 hour layover, and a 3 hour flight, I will find myself in Ankara, Turkey! I have been reading up on my destination, but I still have no idea what to expect...I'm planning to spend my life savings on bottled water as you can't drink theirs and I will save critical comments about Turkey or its founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk for my personal journaling as it is illegal to criticize the government in Turkey.  For now, I think I will focus my study of Turkey on two ideas--Turkey's efforts to officially join the Western ranks through the European Union and the barriers to the admission and the role of secularism as Turkey democratizes. Stay tuned for details of my experience!

Final Thoughts about History 480: A Senior Seminar in Public History

Our assignment for the end of this course is to blog about our experience in public history this semester and what it has taught us about history more generally. I must start by saying that this course was nothing at all like I imagined it to be. When I signed up, I thought we were going to spend the semester talking about monuments and that the final project, though it was described as anything but a research paper, would end up being one anyway—I mean what humanities class doesn’t end with a paper or an essay exam—come on! Now as I think back through the fifteen weeks, complete with frustrations, surprises, and light-bulb moments (as I call them,) I sit here with a completely transformed understanding of history. This transition I have made is not the typical one from an understanding of history as facts and dates to one of analysis. (luckily, I made that one during my first history class at MSU). Instead, it is, at base, the ability to think back to Maria Leiby’s warning that “history is messy” and nod. This realization came about primarily from our class project. When Maria first warned our class that doing public history, which I have come to realize characterizes all of history, is messy, I thought, well how can history be messy? Everyone is dead. You just piece together various parts of the puzzle and you find answers to your questions. What I didn’t realize is how hard the pieces would be to track down, or how many interpretations and opinions these difference pieces would generate amongst those searching them out. Indeed, history is messy on two fronts: finding the information you think/know exists, and interpreting it amongst your peer group.

Thus, another lesson I have learned is that history is about people. In our class, we learned that history is about working with the people who have the information you need, no matter how inconvenient their schedules. It is also about working with one another to communication information found and agree on a common narrative. Even in my individual project, I am learning that sharing history with others is only possible if the historian is still alive to share what he/she has written! Which brings up another point, history is also about the people you share it with—audience. Audience is especially important in public history (which if you recall I said is all history) because its purpose is to share history with the public. Institutions and organizations that support history through public programs care more about how you as the historian plan to convey history to your audience, than how many facts, figures, and dates you know. I am learning this idea in writing my grant proposal. I am actually having to justify why the history I am studying matters and is useful. This is another lesson I have learned this semester, but really have always known—history is useful!! I try to have this argument with doubters and skeptics every now and again, and my fall back has always been that we can learn from the past to avoid future mistakes, but I would say that there is so much more to the story after this semester’s experience…

Now throughout the piece I have said that public history really is all history—and here is why I think so. What I learned through the I-496 project is how the small city of Lansing, MI was representative of larger themes in US history. However, these large themes don’t get to be themes without the same thing happening in several places. Figuring out the situation of the construction of a highway for Lansing, MI really has relevance for anyone interested in those general themes. Big ideas in history don’t get to be big without the small ideas which compose them. I guess I learned to think about history in this different way this semester—through the small ideas. Not just through macro themes, but in the everyday workings of human life and the passions and motivations that drive that life.

That being said, the overarching ideas make the small ideas count. I am thinking about history versus heritage here. Not only do we need to look for the small pieces to the history puzzle, but we also have to consider how they fit in with the narratives society is used to. And sometimes, the best way to convey history to an audience is to rely on those narratives, especially when you can’t find the small details to support what you are saying. History is never completely separable from heritage.

Ultimately I leave this semester with a little more preparation for the real world. And more of an understanding why all of these ideas I have spent four years learning and debating really matter to everyone outside of the ideal world that is Academia. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still am planning to be an academic, but now I feel I can take on that life mission with a different perspective. I feel I can actually engage my audience with ideas about history because I have a better understanding of their impact in reality.

Working on the Final Project

For the amusement of anyone still reading these, I wanted to say that I am excited to be working on this final project. I will say more about this in my official concluding post for the class, but I think my excitement speaks to the importance of public history.  I love history, but my history classes at times make me want to hate it.  Working on ordinary, run-of-the-mill research papers during Finals Week when you have a million things to do and just want to scream at midnight,

does not encourage love of history through such a project.  However, this refreshing new assignment has me not dreading my library cubicle, because I see how it can bring something I love to my real life--even my professional adulthood life--GO FIGURE!

I hope this post (if any of my classmates are reading) encourages you onward as we try to finish up and reminds you that you love history and this project is a way you could make it come alive for someone else.  It is a project that actually matters in the world of alive-walking-around people instead of the world of old-dead-white-guys.

Exciting Day!

I was going to post earlier after our 8:30 HST 480 seminar this morning, but got caught up in the events of the day, but now that exciting thing number two has happened regarding this class, I cannot help but pull myself away from my thesis on the thought of Pierre Manent to post.

First things first, this morning in class, my fellow public historians in training, Ed and Kelly produced what has seemed like the hardest things to find, yet, in my mind at least, one of the central parts of our research project--AN ALTERNATIVE to the I-496 interstate!  While it is not the exact portion of the expressway we have been working with, the fact that an alternative indeed exists means that MDOT did at least consider alternatives to the route. Also this alternative is labeled as "2" which means there has to be a first somewhere, even if we can't find it.

Along these same lines, I discovered amidst the files my father has been sending me, construction/acquisition files from 1966 when the portion we are concerned with (33047 is the official code number I believe) was built! One of the files is labeled "removal items" and details what must be removed from the houses in question...I would like to post the picture here but can't seem to figure out how to download the tiff file at the moment, but still... AWESOME RIGHT?

BUT THEN...my day got even better as far as this class goes. On the way out of class, Dr. K was asking me how my individual project on the grant proposal was going...I explained how thrilled I was to have had RB Bernstein comment on my post and offer his help, but that I was still waiting on the LeFrak forum for the grant proposal they had sent to NEH as an example (as the forum was where my idea came from) and lo and behold, Professor Melzer came through tonight and the document he sent IS PERFECT. It doesn't really include budgetary things as far as I could tell from my quick skim of it, but as the important part of this project is the history anyway, I think I'll stick mostly to the narrative portion myself.

All in all, public history can be a great struggle, but the small successes become awesome victories :)

Two Projects--Three Weeks--Time to Panic?

I write you all from one of those lonely library cubicles that I hate because they inevitably produce LOTS of productivity because there is little else to focus on but the work in front of you...

I was very productive tonight on my individual project. I think I want the focus of the lectures to be one of the issues brought up by R. B. Bernstein's The Founding Fathers Reconsidered.  He has a chapter entitled "Achievements and Challenges" and one of them is "The Constitution as Exploding Cigar."  The central idea in this chapter is as follows:



“As Jefferson complained in 1816, later generations have ascribed to the founding fathers ‘a wisdom more than human and have treated their handiwork with ‘sanctimonious reverence.’ This attitude disregards one central fact that Jefferson recognized and stressed—that the Constitution was and remains a human artifact that human beings made and that human beings must make work, and one consequence of its being a human artifact is that it includes imperfections. Some of these imperfections were deliberate compromises…Other imperfections were the product of fear…Still others were the result of the founding fathers being subject to the same human frailties that bedevil all human beings in all societies—lapses of creativity or imagination and failures of care or foresight…” (108)

Basically the idea is that the founders were human so the Constitution is filled with their mistakes or errors. I think an interesting discussion forum would be the errors of the founders...something similar to this conception is another idea voiced in Bernstein's conclusion:

“America’s contentious relationship with the founding fathers has unfolded within and been shaped by a pair of linked questions. How much do the founding fathers resemble us and how much do they differ from us? To what extend are we obliged to keep faith with them or set them aside in the face of changing conditions and problems? That the American people still govern themselves under a written constitution framed by the founding fathers, albeit with a series of amendments adopted between the early 1790s and the early 1990s, gives these questions urgency and bite” (168).

I mean isn't this the reason we study these old dead white guys anyway? To understand how to apply their thoughts to ours today and to the current and future products of modern politics?

Safe to say, I had much better luck today in the library thanks to Dr. K's helpful advice. I now have an extremely heavy bookbag and lots of reading to do, but feel a bit better about the direction of the project.

As for our class project. I (and perhaps foolishly) agreed to be the overall editor/reviser of our I-496 museum exhibit proposal. I generally enjoy this kind of work and hope I will find this endeavor just as enjoyable.

I'm getting a bit overwhelmed (total understatement) with the idea that there is so little time left and I have so much to do in this class. I'm hoping as I keep working that things will fall into place like they always magically seem to do...

Class Project Thoughts

I think the project is going well and as Dr. K put it this morning we have "found our working groove" as a class (or something to that effect).  However, I am a bit frustrated.  I feel like the two teams are trying to communicate with one another, but I feel like only one of the teams is listening and responding--namely the Research Team. This may sound surprising as I am a member of the Writing and Design Team, but I feel we are not doing our part to respond to the hard work of the Researchers.  How many of you have read the documents that they keep posting? I read the summary document from the trip to the library this last Friday and it was FASCINATING. Much of the things we have just been assuming as Designers are proven in that document. I know I am guilty of this too(I certainly have NOT read everything they post), but I think we as a team are too stuck in our ideas and our creative side, and I am worried that we're not using the valuable research they are producing. 

Now maybe I am still too stuck in the academic side of things and the normal way I write research papers. I feel like we should be trying to incorporate all of their research into arguments and support for arguments in our proposal. Maybe I am missing the point a bit though. I know our exhibit is trying to leave things open-minded for our visitors, but I feel we should present a good persuasive presentation for both sides: that the highway destroyed a neighborhood and that there was a need for the interstate.  Yes we need to be concerned about the design of our exhibit and what items are going in it, but I feel we also should be concerned with the overarching story.

If I were a researcher, I think I would feel a little neglected.  They were all so so so excited about the work they accomplished this weekend (and rightfully so I would say!) as evidenced in their blogs, but I felt the reception we gave that excitement was subpar.

Moving forward, I think the designers need to be better about absorbing the information the researchers find instead of worrying about only the vision we have for the project.

More on the Pesky Final Project

I've forgotten how truly productive/refreshing a day at the library can be. I typically avoid this place like the plague, but whenever I do decide to grin and bear it, I usually do some really great work--it's all in the mindset I guess. And though I would rather have spent this gorgeous spring day outside, I found myself a desk by the window looking at the river, so I was content :)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am working on a grant proposal for my final project on American Intellectual History. I think I have focused in on a theme and some thinkers! In their book The American Intellectual Tradition, Vol 1: 1630-1865, David Hollinger and Charles Capper divide this portion of intellectual history in the US into five parts. I have decided to focus in on Part Two: Republican Enlightenment. These authors utilize documents from Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. I would like to focus on all of these ideally, but perhaps leave out one or two (Thomas Paine?). I want the theme of my proposed conference to be the Origins of the Constitution--Understanding our Nation's Constitution--or something to that effect. Since my plan was to make this primarily a scholarship program for students culminating in a lecture series that is open to the public, I thought it would be cool to have the conference in the fall during the week of September 17--Constitution Day!

After doing some research today, I learned that Constitution Day was established in 1940 by Congress to help Americans develop their citizenship. Schools that receive federal funding are required to do activities for Constitution Day on Sept. 17 as well. I thought organizing the conference around this theme would help me to get a grant as the idea of it supports the objectives the government has set forth. Also, originally I wanted to apply for a We the People grant because the fellowship I have this semester through the LeFrak Forum uses such a grant to support its lecture series...I think this would be more plausible now because NEH supports this grant program as well as Constitution Day.

On the actual research side of things, I found myself frustrated because the library doesn't seem to have many books on the subject of intellectual history. However, when I found a book on the intellectual history of the Constitution itself, good research skills allowed me to find great books on the history of American Political Thought...guess I found myself a new buzz word!  I also searched encore for the specific intellectuals I am interested in and found books on them by scholars I could potentially ask to come and lecture.

I feel a lot better about this project after today, but I need to work on the 'story' I want to tell in my grant proposal--as in how exactly learning more about the Constitution's founding helps one to be a better citizen. This should be a good exercise for me more generally as I want to be a political philosopher and need to start learning how to better defend why I want to do this with my life.

S'all for now!