Public vs. Academic History: (some of) My Views These are only a few of my thoughts about what we had in class about this subject. Where do you draw the line between public history and academic history? This was a question that I brought to attention on the first day of class, and based on the audible reaction that seemed to come after, it must at least be a question that most of you have considered. Just what exactly is the difference between the two? A Google search of the phrase “public vs. academic history” reveals that this issue extends beyond our classroom and that it is also a genuine issue that public historians are concerned about. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately if you are looking at it from a different way, this is a subjective question that has no objective answer and that is EXACTLY what separates the realms of public and academic history. First, let me bring to attention our own struggle to define public history. In class we broke up into several different groups, and each group came up with its own definition of public history. No two groups had the same answer although many of our ideas overlapped. The fact of the matter is, the very definition of the word public is a definition that is somewhat challenging to come up with. Wright State is a public university, but only in the sense of how it is funded, and even that is a point that I am sure could be argued. Did we not all submit applications and have to meet certain qualifications to be admitted? Wouldn’t the same be required at a private institution? So tell me, what is the difference? Just consider the idea of submitting a statement of intent and GRE scores in order to gain admittance to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. Even though the museum receives “public” funds would you still consider it a “public” institution if such policies were in place? Now I don’t deny that certain aspects of our campus of are public, especially in regards to speech. I don’t know if anyone was fortunate enough to hear the preaching of what we at work dub the “Quad God,” who preached on for about 3 hours on the Quad. All the while students challenged his cries and accusations that they were, “sinners, adulterers, whore-mongers, thieves, liars and murders.” I can’t lie, I found the situation humorous if not also sad, but I think it demonstrates one important aspect of history, controversy. There was no shortage of that during the preacher’s appearances, and all of this occurred in a “public place.” On a slightly different note, I watched this while at work, and how it progressed over about three hours. At the beginning, the students poked fun at the preachers, and ridiculed what they said. But by the end of the day, I could no longer even hear the preachers anymore over the catcalls and statements coming from the preachers. I think the preachers intentionally invited and provoked this reaction. To be honest “our future leaders of America,” were making themselves look like asses for lack of a better word. Just because someone approaches you speaking hate and casting their judgment on you doesn’t mean we should act the same. If everyone had simply walked away, who would they have been left to preach too? I must digress… Interestingly enough, one of the phrases that seemed to pop up on my Google search was the return “POPULAR history vs. academic history.” Many of the definitions of public history that our groups came up with in class seemed to touch upon the idea of popularity, although I don’t think any of us explicitly said the word popular. We all seemed to be trying to say that public history is history that the public finds not only appealing, but it is also presented in a manner that is equally relevant. Based off our definitions in class, I’d almost say I was in a Popular History program not a Public History program. Now just think about how silly you’d feel saying I went to graduate school to major in Popular History. What the hell is that? I may only be a first year grad student in the public history program, but I know when you compare the number of students in public history programs across the nation compared to say, those in MBA programs there isn’t anything POPULAR about it. The same is also true for the percentage of the annual budget the history programs receive from out PUBLIC school systems--but wait--I’m getting off topic aren’t I? Going back to the point of subjectivity and objectivity… What is one of the main differences between the public history track we have chosen and the traditional thesis track of history? I’ll give you a hint, the word thesis is an important part of it. In a traditional thesis program you pick a field of expertise, you study it extensively, you form an opinion on it, then you defend your opinion and use arguments that are based on your research to support that opinion. From a purely academic point of view, history is extremely subjective. Academically, topics in history are surrounded with criticism and subjectivity, and holding up to that criticism and defending your position during peer review is what makes a thesis “bona fide.” Now consider the idea of criticism as it relates to the public realm of history. All of a sudden, the word criticism takes on an entirely different connotation. Why are we, as public historians, so concerned with the word “controversy?” Think back to the first day of class, after I asked where do we draw the line between public and academic history, what was the discussion that came up next? We started to discuss controversy and public opinion. Is it only by chance this was the next topic that came up to discussion next or maybe we subconsciously realized that there just might be some kind of relation. I explicitly remember Dawn saying that one of the most important EHTICAL principles of public history is to be objective. I also remember another classmate saying that if you have a public exhibit, and it pisses everyone off, you must have done something right. I would have to agree with this statement, though it intuitively goes against our preconceived notions that public history is popular history. When you really consider the word public, it’s a lot easier to think of things that are NOT public than to think of things that are. Perhaps public history is more relevant to the things that aren’t popular rather than the things that are. I wrote this only to bring forth some of my thoughts about the differences between the fields of Public History and Academic history; furthermore in the case of public history, to consider more about our struggle to define Public History and the fundamental thoughts surrounding it. And I’m sure I could find a couple

These are only a few of my thoughts about what we had in class about this subject.

I would like to credit a blog post that I can't happen to find again that gave me the idea of subjective and objective views....

 

                Where do you draw the line between public history and academic history? This was a question that I brought to attention on the first day of class, and based on the audible reaction that seemed to come after, it must at least be a question that most of you have considered. Just what exactly is the difference between the two? A Google search of the phrase “public vs. academic history” reveals that this issue extends beyond our classroom and that it is also a genuine issue that public historians are concerned about.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately if you are looking at it from a different way, this is a subjective question that has no objective answer and that is EXACTLY what separates the realms of public and academic history. 

                First, let me bring to attention our own struggle to define public history. In class we broke up into several different groups, and each group came up with its own definition of public history. No two groups had the same answer although many of our ideas overlapped. The fact of the matter is, the very definition of the word public is a definition that is somewhat challenging to come up with. Wright State is a public university, but only in the sense of how it is funded, and even that is a point that I am sure could be argued. Did we not all submit applications and have to meet certain qualifications to be admitted? Wouldn’t the same be required at a private institution? So tell me, what is the difference? Just consider the idea of submitting a statement of intent and GRE scores in order to gain admittance to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. Even though the museum receives “public” funds would you still consider it a “public” institution if such policies were in place? Now I don’t deny that certain aspects of our campus of are public, especially in regards to speech.

I don’t know if anyone was fortunate enough to hear the preaching of what we at work dub the “Quad God,” who preached on for about 3 hours on the Quad. All the while students challenged his cries and accusations that they were, “sinners, adulterers, whore-mongers, thieves, liars and murders.” I can’t lie, I found the situation humorous if not also sad, but I think it demonstrates one important aspect of history, controversy. There was no shortage of that during the preacher’s appearances, and all of this occurred in a “public place.” On a slightly different note, I watched this while at work, and how it progressed over about three hours. At the beginning, the students poked fun at the preachers, and ridiculed what they said. But by the end of the day, I could no longer even hear the preachers anymore over the catcalls and statements coming from the preachers. I think the preachers intentionally invited and provoked this reaction. To be honest “our future leaders of America,” were making themselves look like asses for lack of a better word. Just because someone approaches you speaking hate and casting their judgment on you doesn’t mean we should act the same. If everyone had simply walked away, who would they have been left to preach too? I must digress…

                Interestingly enough, one of the phrases that seemed to pop up on my Google search was the return “POPULAR history vs. academic history.” Many of the definitions of public history that our groups came up with in class seemed to touch upon the idea of popularity, although I don’t think any of us explicitly said the word popular. We all seemed to be trying to say that public history is history that the public finds not only appealing, but it is also presented in a manner that is equally relevant. Based off our definitions in class, I’d almost say I was in a Popular History program not a Public History program. Now just think about how silly you’d feel saying I went to graduate school to major in Popular History. What the hell is that? I may only be a first year grad student in the public history program, but I know when you compare the number of students in public history programs across the nation compared to say, those in MBA programs there isn’t anything POPULAR about it. The same is also true for the percentage of the annual budget the history programs receive from out 

                Going back to the point of subjectivity and objectivity…  What is one of the main differences between the public history track we have chosen and the traditional thesis track of history? I’ll give you a hint, the word thesis is an important part of it. In a traditional thesis program you pick a field of expertise, you study it extensively, you form an opinion on it, then you defend your opinion and use arguments that are based on your research to support that opinion. From a purely academic point of view, history is extremely subjective. Academically, topics in history are surrounded with criticism and subjectivity, and holding up to that criticism and defending your position during peer review is what makes a thesis “bona fide.” Now consider the idea of criticism as it relates to the public realm of history. All of a sudden, the word criticism takes on an entirely different connotation. Why are we, as public historians, so concerned with the word “controversy?”  Think back to the first day of class, after I asked where do we draw the line between public and academic history, what was the discussion that came up next? We started to discuss controversy and public opinion. Is it only by chance this was the next topic that came up to discussion next or maybe we subconsciously realized that there just might be some kind of relation. I explicitly remember Dawn saying that one of the most important EHTICAL principles of public history is to be objective. I also remember another classmate saying that if you have a public exhibit, and it pisses everyone off, you must have done something right.  I would have to agree with this statement, though it intuitively goes against our preconceived notions that public history is popular history. When you really consider the word public, it’s a lot easier to think of things that are NOT public than to think of things that are. Perhaps public history is more relevant to the things that aren’t popular rather than the things that are.

I wrote this only to bring forth some of my thoughts about the differences between the fields of Public History and Academic history; furthermore in the case of public history, to consider more about our struggle to define Public History and the fundamental thoughts surrounding it.

And I’m sure I could find a couple more points but perhaps some of you have points to add or disagree with?