We are pleased to announce the July 2020 publication of Doing Public Humanities, edited by the Center for Public Humanities' former Director, Professor of American Studies Susan Smulyan. The book’s essays, written by faculty, staff and alumni of the Center, are essential reading for students, faculty and practitioners in public history, historic preservation, the history of art, engaged sociology and public archaeology and anthropology.  The contributors are committed to presenting a Public Humanities practice that encourages social justice and explores the intersectionalities of race, class, gender, and sexualities.  Together, they illustrate the theories and methods of the Public Humanities, and the field’s unique synthesis of critical thinking, creative practice, social justice work, and community engagement and allyship. 

Doing Public Humanities can be purchased on the Routledge website or at local or online bookstores.  All of the contributors are available for classroom visits or guest lectures related to these essays.       

Table of Contents 

Introduction

Susan Smulyan, Professor of American Studies, Brown University and former Director (2014-20), John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage 

The Rise of the Public Humanists 

Robyn Schroeder, MA ’10, Assistant Director, National Institute of American History and Democracy, William & Mary and former Postdoctoral Fellow at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage 

What Can Public Humanities Learn from Public Art?

Susan Smulyan, Professor of American Studies, Brown University and former Director (2014-20), John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage 

Teaching Digital Public Humanities with the Public Library: The Lou Costa Collection, the Updike Collection, and the AS220 Collection at the Providence Public Library 

Jim McGrath, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Digital Public Humanities, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

Preservation’s Expanded Field: The Hacking Heritage Unconference and the Fogarty Funeral 

Marisa Angell Brown, Assistant Director and Adjunct Lecturer, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

Hyperlocal History: Linking People to the Past through Class, Race, and Memory 

Marjory O’Toole, MA ’18, Executive Director, Little Compton Historical Society
Ron Potvin, Assistant Director and Adjunct Lecturer, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

Racial Forgetting and Present History: Remembering Violence in Monuments, Museums, and Markers 

Monica Muñoz Martinez, Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant Professor of American Studies, Brown University

What Readers Matter? Challenging the Disappearance of the Branch Library in Boston’s Chinese Neighborhood 

Diane O’Donoghue, Director, Program for Public Humanities and Senior Fellow for the Humanities, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University and Adjunct Lecturer, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

The Rosa Parks House: Doing Public Art and Public History in the Age of Neoliberalism 

Anthony Bogues, Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory and Inaugural Director, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University
Shana Weinberg, MA’11, Assistant Director, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University
Maiyah Gamble- Rivers, MA ’16, Manager of Programs & Outreach, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University

Against Invisibility: Asian American Family Photography and the Public Humanities

Robert G. Lee, Associate Professor, American Studies, Brown University

Afterword: The “Doing” of Doing Public Humanities

Matthew Frye Jacobson, PhD '92, William Robertson Coe Professor of American Studies and History, Yale University