Relatively few historic sites across North America do a good job of interpreting women’s experiences, never mind the histories and cultures of non-privileged and non-white racial groups, socially-marginalized groups like the poor, or GLBTQ people. This seminar will focus on the issues, challenges, and some theoretical and practical techniques for documenting, recovering, and interpreting the everyday lives and cultures of people whose heritage often gets overlooked, distorted, erased, or made invisible. New preservation practices implemented since the 1980s are shaping our understandings of heritage and of the built environment in important ways. They provide powerful tools for local citizens and grassroots groups engaged in historical research and small-p planning, as well as preservationists, planners, designers, and policy makers. The new critical preservation practices raise fundamental questions about what preservation and heritage encompasses, who gets to be a preservationist, the functions of grassroots preservation in a democracy, and how best to research, conserve, and interpret both tangible and intangible heritage of a much broader range of North Americans.
Students will explore these issues through weekly readings and the occasional viewing that will include 1) theoretical texts from cultural studies, critical race theory, African American Studies, gender studies, historical archaeology, and critical geography, and 2) case studies of local, national, and international heritage sites. We will also take some fieldtrips, and participate in Maryland Day with residents of the Lakeland Community. The class will form a partnership with members of the Lakeland Community Heritage Project to record current and former residents' oral histories about growing up and livingin Lakeland. The project, which will model best practices in community-grounded preservation, will be partly supported on an Omeka-driven software platform.