HIST 2297 Public History Lab: The History of People Setting Themselves Free From US Slavery in the US (also ASRC 2297, AMST 2297) (HST-AS)
Tuesday and Thursday: 1:25-2:15 plus Independent Research and Optional 1-credit Trip to Louisiana
Professor Edward Baptist
In this course, we will study the history of Black resistance to slavery in the US. Then we will help to build an exhibit about that topic at one of the foremost museum sites that interprets the history of US slavery. Students will learn about the history of slavery and emancipation, and how the attempt to memory-hole the history of Black resistance to slavery has shaped public memory and politics. We will also study how institutions like the Whitney Plantation Museum in Louisiana are working to produce a more accurate understanding of the American past. The course will run parallel with a sibling course being taught in the University of New Orleans’ MA program in Public History. In the second half of the course we will shift to working on the research, development, and production of the exhibit. The course will culminate (for those able) in a trip to Louisiana. There we will work on-site for a week with community partners, museum staff, and our colleagues in the UNO course. This will require students to make travel arrangements, and to pay a program fee that will cover lodging and local transportation.
