Join us on 14 November (on site or online) for our first annual International Public History seminar. Arranged by the Public History group of the C²DH, the seminar (10h-16h30) will offer presentations and discussions with researchers and practitioners from Kenya, China and Singapore, the United Arab Emirate. We are proud and fortunate to welcome three visiting fellows for keynote lectures:
10.00-11.00: Salwa Mikdadi (New York University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates): Languages of Art and Public History
Salwa Mikdadi is the Founding Director and Principal Investigator of al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art (2020- , NYUAD) and Professor of Practice in Art History at NYU Abu Dhabi (2013- ). Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art of the Arab world, Arab art institutions, gender politics in art, and museums and society. Past positions include Head of Professional Development at the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT). Head of the Arts & Culture Program at the Emirates Foundation, taught at Sorbonne-Paris Abu Dhabi, and developed museum studies and curation courses for UAE art professionals (2009-2013). Mikdadi was the Founder and Director of Cultural & Visual Arts Resource/ICWA, one of the first non-profit organizations dedicated to art in the Arab world (USA 1988-2006). She curated numerous exhibitions (1968-2018), including Palestine c/o Venice at the 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009, Permanent Temporariness- NYUAD Art Gallery (co-curator 2018) Forces of Change: Artists of the Arab World (traveling, USA 1994-95), Rhythm & Form: Visual Reflection on Arabic Poetry (traveling, 1996-97). She is the editor of several catalogs and books on Arab art. She wrote the reference guide on the history of twentieth-century art in Western Asia and N. Africa for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History.
13.00-14.00: Na Li ( National University of Singapore, Singapore): Opportunities for Emergent Public History in Asia
When public history was imported from the United States to China around the turn of the twenty-first century, it was introduced as a sub-field within history, and has developed along that path ever since. Professional historians in China, even some forward-looking ones, see public history as merely presenting a change in the patterns of participation in history-making. My decade long work in China has challenged this view. Public history in China, and at a broader scale in Asia, represents a fundamental change of the entire process of history-making. In this process, the public is prosuming history. This lecture discusses some of the recent public history work in selective Asian countries, and explores the potentials and opportunities of an emergent public history in Asia.
15.00-16.00: Wairimũ Nduba (African Digital Heritage, Kenya): The Radical Hope Contained Within An Utu/Ubuntu-led Approach to Community Engagement and Public History
The community engagement aspect of African Digital Heritage (ADH) is rooted in collectively working towards increasing knowledge and understanding about the value of art and culture disciplines on the African continent. It is based on the belief that this work will lead to the empowerment, strengthening, and development of a robust cultural ecosystem and is also hinged on a core element of our mandate that sees the work of technology not only as a method of building our futures but also a necessary place to reimagine, redefine, and restore African pasts. The Culture Catch Up: Public History Talks and the Historians in Residence program are the two main projects that comprise our community engagement work.
The poet, professor, and activist Micere Githae Mugo in her seminal publication, “The Imperative of Utu/Ubuntu in Africana scholarship” declared that research and praxis must combine both heart and mind. She states that this practice must be rooted in the firm belief that, “knowledge is embodied in multiple/multifarious systems, cultures, and sites that thrive through interaction and exchange with each other,” and that it is the “story/fiction of conquest and empire building” that perpetuates the method of working within alienating silos. Mugo embeds her work on the philosophy of Utu (Kiswahili) and Ubuntu (Zulu) which lies at the heart of many African indigenous cosmologies that affirm the statement: “I am because you are and since you are therefore I am.” By specifically locating our projects the Culture Catch Up: Public History Talks and the Historians in Residence program within the ever-green work of Mugo, this lecture will map out the evolution, development, and learnings gleaned from both projects and will delve into the vital nature of community-centered spaces as sites of radical hope and abundance as the method of counter in a cultural landscape that remains pervasively challenging.
Thursday, 14 November 2024
10.00 - 16.30
"Aquarium", 4th floor Maison des Sciences humaines
and online