Public History for a Post-Truth Era
Fighting Denial through Memory Movements
July 2022
Public History for a Post-Truth Era explores how to combat historical denial when faith in facts is at an all-time low. Moving beyond memorial museums or documentaries, the book shares on-the-ground stories of participatory public memory movements that brought people together to grapple with the deep roots and current truths of human rights abuses. It gives an inside look at "Sites of Conscience" around the world, and the memory activists unearthing their hidden histories, from the Soviet Gulag to the slave trade in Senegal. It then follows hundreds of people joining forces across dozens of US cities to fight denial of Guantánamo, mass incarceration, and climate change.
As reparations proposals proliferate in the US, the book is a resource for anyone seeking to confront historical injustices and redress their harms. Written in accessible, non-academic language, it will appeal to students, educators, or supportive citizens interested in public history, museums, or movement organizing.
The City is an Ecosystem: Sustainable Education, Policy, and Practice
August 2022
The City is an Ecosystem maps an interdisciplinary, community-engaged response to the great ecological crises of our time—climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality—which pose particular challenges for cities, where more than half the world’s population currently live.
Gathering multiple interdisciplinary and community-engaged perspectives on these environmental crises, with contemporary and historical case study discussions, this timely volume cuts across the humanities and social and health sciences, and will be of interest to policymakers, urban ecologists, activists, built environment professionals, educators, and advanced students concerned with the future of our cities.
See chapter 17, An Environmental Justice Lens on Indianapolis’ Urban Ecosystem: Collaborative Community Curation.
Museums & Social Issues: A Journal of Reflective Discourse
May 2017
In 2011, Museums & Social Issues dedicated an entire issue to prisons and individuals who were incarcerated. This issue of Museums & Social Issues revisits the contemporary issues of mass incarceration and the role that museums and public history play in working alongside and with different communities to promote greater public awareness. All authors featured in this issue participated in the 2015 project with the Humanities Action Lab to create the States of Incarceration traveling exhibition. This exhibition was a coalition of 20 universities who focused on the past, present, and future of incarceration. The authors in this issue reflect on their experiences in creating the States of Incarceration exhibition and examine how their experience relates to the wider work of museum professionals.