In 2011, Annie Valk, Deputy Director of Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, invited me to co-teach a course entitled “Oral History and Community Memory” focused on Mashapaug Pond in Providence. I was interested in hearing and preserving the stories about this place as told by the people who had worked at Gorham and/or grown up by the pond. Working with an oral historian and students enabled the gathering of a far greater number of stories than UPP could have done alone.
In 2011, Annie Valk, Deputy Director of Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, invited me to co-teach a course entitled “Oral History and Community Memory” focused on Mashapaug Pond in Providence. I was interested in hearing and preserving the stories about this place as told by the people who had worked at Gorham and/or grown up by the pond. Working with an oral historian and students enabled the gathering of a far greater number of stories than UPP could have done alone.
Franklin Odo is an author, activist, scholar and historian; he focuses on the history and lived experiences of Asian Americans. Odo was Director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. He is currently the John J. McCloy ’16 Visiting Professor of American Institutions and International Diplomacy at Amherst College where he teaches courses on race, public history and memory, and the idea of “model minorities.”
Alan Nakagawa is multi-media, multi-sensory sound artist based in Los Angeles. Alan has collaborated with L.A. Department of Transportation, worked with the Getty Museum, the Smithsonian, and on a variety of international projects. Alan is interested in creating “aha!” moments for the participants who view and interact with his art.
In June of 2017, we introduced you to the Center for Public Humanities’ first Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, Eryk Salvaggio. We asked Eryk to provide us with an update on his work. Thanks for all of your efforts, Eryk! And thanks to Wiki Education for creating the Visiting Scholar program!
Rachel FeinmarkRachel Feinmark, Director of Strategic Communications and former ACLS Public Fellow at the Tenement Museum in NYC, gave a lunch talk at the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Public Humanities on October 5th, 2017. In her talk, Abandoning Museum Neutrality, she spoke about the need for institutions to abandon neutrality and become engaging relevant spaces. I followed up with Rachel over the phone to hear more about her path, personal work, and ideas about public work.
