Displaying Race and Ethnicity: Communities and their Museums
September 21, 2006
John Nicholas Brown Center, Library
357 Benefit Street
12 p.m.
Carlos Tortolero, president, Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, IL
October 6, 2006
John Nicholas Brown Center, Library
357 Benefit Street
12 p.m.
Linda Coombs, associate director, Wampanoag Indigenous Program, Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth, MA
October 19, 2006
John Nicholas Brown Center, Library
357 Benefit Street
12 p.m.
Mark Leone, director, Archeology in Annapolis and professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland
Co-sponsored with the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.
October 20, 2006
John Nicholas Brown Center, Library
357 Benefit Street
12 p.m.
Ron Chew, director, Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, WA
November 30, 2006
Faunce House, Leung Gallery
357 Benefit Street
12 p.m.
Lonnie G. Bunch III , director, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Public Humanities Professional Workshops
October 30, 2006
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Alex Allardt, ArtCare Resources
December 8, 2006
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Dan Yaeger, director, Charles River Museum of Industry and principal, Yaeger Communications
This workshop was an intensive, hands-on experience in planning a cultural tourism program for your community. Partcipants received a "tourism toolkit" to use in breakout sessions that challenged creativity and sharpened planning skills. The workshop covered these topics: What is cultural tourism? Why is it important? Establishing a local tourism committee. Setting tourism goals. Inventory your cultural tourism assets. Organizing a "Tourism Enterprise Zone." Obstacles and opportunities. Putting your plan into action.
February 7, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Steve Parry, producer of the forthcoming documentary for the PBS series American Experience, The Hayloft Gang, about the National Barn Dance
March 12, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Ken Yellis, former vice president and museum director of the International Tennis Hall of Fame; former assistant director for public programs at the Peabody Museum of Natural History; former director of public programs at Plimoth Plantation; and former curator of education at the National Portrait Gallery
In this workshop, Ken discussed exhibit design, audience response, and dealing with controversy.
March 22, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
9 – 11 a.m.
Tyler Denmead, founder and executive director of New Urban Arts, an interdisciplinary arts studio that empowers young people to develop a creative practice they can sustain throughout their lives.
April 10, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Nick Spitzer, host and producer of American Routes
Nick Spitzer is the creator and host of American Routes, a weekly public radio program presenting a broad range of American music, documentary features, and artist interviews. Now in its ninth year, American Routes reaches nearly a million listeners on over 225 stations and has been hailed in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Billboard, and on ABC's Nightline and In Search of America with Peter Jennings. Spitzer’s radio experience goes back to the 1970s. He is an internationally recognized folklorist and has served as host and producer of the award-winning Folk Masters and American Roots 4th of July concert series. In addition, he is a documentary, record, film, and festival producer for the Smithsonian Institution and PBS, and is independent cultural producer for NPR's All Things Considered. Spitzer is also currently a professor of folklore and cultural conservation at the University of New Orleans.
April 13, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Polly Clark, senior fellow at the Harvard Art Law Clinic
This workshop covered the fundamentals of art law. The Harvard Art Law Clinic represents museums and non-profit arts organizations, providing legal assistance on a broad range of issues, including charitable giving, collection management, corporate governance, cultural property, intellectual property, and tax-exemption issues. Workshop topics included provenance issues and legal concerns over ownership, the rights of an organization to reproduce and use images of objects in its collection, and intellectual property as it refers to new media, photography, archives, and reproducible works.
April 26, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
James Russell, vice president of development for the International Yacht Restoration School
In this workshop, James Russell provided the tools needed to become an effective fundraiser for your organization.
May 4, 2007
John Nicholas Brown Center
357 Benefit Street
2 – 3 p.m.
Deborah Baum from Brown University’s Office of Media Relations and Bill Van Siclen from the Providence Journal discussed how to establish media contacts, how to create an effective press release, and how to generate positive publicity about your exhibition or organization.
Is Radio Still Important?
The Department of American Civilization and the John Nicholas Brown Center hosted a series of panel discussions on the past, present, and future of radio broadcasting. Over its history, radio has proven one of the most flexible of media, constantly reinventing itself, and that flexibility becomes more interesting in a changing media world. The series examined why and and how radio continues to play a role in our daily lives by talking to practitioners and scholars who considered radio programming and radio structure.
February 6, 2007
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106
Brown University
8 p.m.
Douglas Craig, reader in history at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, and author of Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the U.S., 1920–40; Steve Parry, producer of the forthcoming documentary The Hayloft Gang; Sonja Williams, associate professor of communications at Howard University and associate producer of “Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was” for Radio Smithsonian
Moderated by Susan Smulyan, associate professor of American civilization and author of Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting
February 25, 2007
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106
Brown University
7 p.m.
Peter Tannenwald ’64, vice president of Irwin, Campbell and Tannenwald, P.C., communications lawyer, legal counsel to WBRU, and former WBRU board member; Don Berns ’69, radio and club D.J. for alternative musics. Known in Canada as “Dr. Trance,” he helped to develop rave culture in Toronto; Dan Oppenheim '98; Rita Cidre ’07, former general manager of WBRU; Jason Sigal ’07, general manager of BSR
Moderated by Susan Smulyan, associate professor of American civilization and author of Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting
In conjunction with an exhibit at the John Hay Library, an audio documentary launch, and a Group Independent Study Project, “Brown Radio History.”
April 10, 2007
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106
Brown University
8 p.m.
Nick Spitzer, creator and producer of American Routes; Pete Tridish, Prometheus Radio Project: Freeing the Airwaves from Corporate Control; Monica Brady-Myerov ’89, reporter at WBUR in Boston and board president of WBRU
Moderated by Susan Smulyan, associate professor of American civilization and author of Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting
American Association for History and Computing 2007 Annual Meeting
April 19, 2007
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106
Brown University
7 p.m.
Brewster Kahle, director and co-founder, The Internet Archive
The goal of universal access to our cultural heritage is within our grasp. With current digital technology we can build comprehensive collections, and with digital networks we can make these available to students and scholars all over the world. The current challenge is establishing the roles, rights, and responsibilities of our libraries and archives in providing public access to this information. With these roles defined, our institutions will help fulfill this epic opportunity of our digital age.
StoryCorps Rhode Island
StoryCorps, a national oral history and storytelling project, visited Providence from June 7–30, 2007 to record the stories of Rhode Islanders. Their traveling recording studio, or MobileBooth, spent the month collecting our community's stories and, ultimately, will preserve those stories at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
The John Nicholas Brown Center was the designated local partner for StoryCorps' Rhode Island visit.
Lonnie G. Bunch III, public historian, author, curator, and scholar, examined outdated interpretations of issues of race in museums and the changing needs of twenty-first century audiences in this fall 2006 lecture.
The spring 2007 series "Is Radio Still Important," featured three panel discussions on the past, present, and future of radio broadcasting, as well as a student-curated exhibition.
In summer 2007 StoryCorps RI collected the stories of Rhode Islanders to be preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.