Author: lukes

I don’t think I have ever read a publication that used more acronims than Our Unprotected Heritage(OUH). This even includes the technical manuals I had to read while I was in the Navy. I’m not sure who Thomas F. King’s (TFK) audience is, but OUH seems to be pitched to a very small group of people who regularly deal with the Light Green Laws (LGL) he saturates OUH with. I personally believe that the Bright Green Laws (BGL) are much more important and should take fiscal and enforcement priority–if I had the choice between cutting the LGLs or the BGLs in the coming federal budget I could face the demise of the LGLs with a clean conscience. I found it humorous that TFK spends most of the book discussing how ineffective the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historical Preservation Act (NHPA) are, only to suggest ways to correct them–on page 161-2–that would require legislation even more complex and unworkable than the already existing laws. A solution to the problem might lie in allowing more jurisdiction to loocal governments. I know of several local initiatives that have successfully impeded projects the community did not want to happen–Hammer Flats (HF), development of five mile and victory area (DFMVA), satelite towers in the same area (STSA). These might not all be cultural heritage related endeavors (CHRE)–which overall I don’t think are very important–but they do show that people can stand up to developers and businesses.

The main thing I came away from this blog with was how important peer review is to academics. Since a large portion of publishing seems connected to career advancement, peer review seems necessary to ensure that the process is as fair as possible. While I’m sure that our peers cannot verify all aspects of our work, including sources and citation, they can still help keep obviously fraudulent material from being published and advancing someone’s academic career. The importance of peer review for public historians is more of a gray area. I don’t know if their are any official mechanism’s to ensure accuracy among public historians or if it is even possible.

As to my response to the blog I can’t say it was very captivating. While I like pirates as much as the next person, I didn’t find reading about someone researching a pirate all that interesting.

The question of whether to preserve any specific structure is an interesting one. Preservation has to be balanced against many factors, such as site usage, cost of preservation/renovation, and its cultural and historical importance. As with some of the Basque sites in the downtown area these factors can vary with time. While many sites which are now on the Basque block might have been historically important, it was not until recently, about the 1980s, that they became culturally important. Their cultural importance–rather than there historical–is what sets these buildings apart. For whatever reason it was not until the 1980s that the Basque community in Boise began to coalesque around a physical area in the city. This began when the old boarding house next to the museum was purchased. It became a rallying point for other Basque cultural institutions-such as the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, Bar Gernica, the Basque community center, and a few other resturants and stores. The success of the Basque cultural preservation (or it might better be termed cultural renovation) has lead to the non-Basque owners of other Basque sites (such as former chapels and boarding houses) to associate their building with the Basque community. The Boise Basque’s are an example of successful grass roots preservation efforts–as opposed to relying on the more formal structures described in our text. They show the importance of not only preserving buildings, but of connecting them with a vibrant culture.

While the reading selections for this week were not the most engaging reading, they did provide a nice break from the Lukian style of weeks past. I found parts of the history of preservation fascinating. One thing I especially liked was the was the description of preservation in the antebellum period. The focus on preserving buildings for patriotic purposes was fascinating. I wonder how much the emphasis on preserving sites connected to great men or events in our past can be connected to the veneration of saints and holy places in Europe. While the Catholic church was a minority throughout much of the antebellum their was still a tendency to deify elements of our nations past – especially the founding fathers. The tendency to canonize our nations founders was especially true of George Washington who was often portrayed as a divinely appointed emissary.

The agitation of the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association is a good example of what might be termed an American ‘cult of the saints.’ The founding fathers–and especially Washington–had already been baptized into the narrative of our nations sacred history and mission. The Mt. Vernon Ladies Association–which seems to have been part of the broader evangelical reform movement–took the step of not only canonizing Washington, but of also extending his sainthood to his place of residence.

I agree with LauriAnn that Luke (what a wonderful name!!) somewhat overstates the case for the importance of museums. Rather than being “venues where many key cultural realities are first defined,” museums seem to reflect cultural realities that have long since been defined and integrated into the dominant forms of power. Instead of being an engine at the forefront of cultural reality definition museums could be better understood as the cultural caboose.

This is seen in both of the controversial exhibits Luke provides as evidence. The revisionist interpretations in both “The West as America,” and the proposed Hiroshima exhibit had long been created and defined by such popular discourses as Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and by social history in our own profession. The reason for the controversy associated with these exhibits was that each side had substantial power behind it-the conservatives so just happened to be running congress at the time of the Hiroshima exhibit.

Luke also appears wide of the mark on the nature of entertainmentality and its relationship to museums. Entertainmentality-which Luke defines as practices that keep us held in some mutually prespecified manners- likely is much different in a democratic and free market society-where institutions must compete for people’s time, votes, or money, than it is described by Luke. The voluntary and competitive nature of American entertainmentality is anything but confinement/containment/occupation. Because of the democratic-in the political sphere-and the competitive-in the economic and temporal spheres-museums have to provide historical narratives and cultural artifacts that reflect the ways patrons want to spend their time, votes, and money. Museums have to be both democratic and competitive to succeed in a politically and economically free society.

On a final note: The usefulness of Foucault needs to be reexamined by academics in the humanities and social sciences. I realize he can help us justify our social value when confronted by the natural sciences-discourse anyone-but otherwise using Foucault seems little more than profoundly self-serving.

Ever evolving technogy holds great promise not only for academic historians, but also for society as a whole. The promise of technology to assist historians in their research and published works has never been greater. The ability of technology to assist historians can be seen into two current public history projects. The first the indomitable Richard White’s “Shaping the West” project which examines how railroads created new spatial patterns and experiences in the American West. This project uses a computer program to represent and manipulate maps and graphs.

Another public history project which utilizes technology is currently being implented by Don Alexander Hawkins. The aim of the project is to digitally recreate the capital at various periods in the 18th century. Ultimately a “video game” will be created that will allow the player to take a stroll through Washington during the 1790s.

While technology is helping historians recreate the past the most interesting developments are occuring in the field of cognitive science. While this may not interest public historians, historians of science may find it interesting. New technology will likely unravel the mysteries of human consciousness during my lifetime. One product of this is that the human mind and human consciencness will be able to be objectively studies. The subjective  realm will be destroyed. One project going a long in doing this is at MIT where researches are mapping the human nervous system. Actually its not so much human scientist that are doing this but a computer program that is being developed.  http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/brain-mapping.html Its not as exciting as mapping railroads or old capitals, but it’s still interesting (and might be more important).

Not only are scientist able to increasingly explain thoughts, emotions, intentions, and mental states, they are also increasingly able to manipulate the mind (by manipulating brain activity). The means to destroy selfishness, and ensure peace and equality are no longer an unrealizable dream, they will be achievable through technological advancement. A description of Rebecca Saxe’s work –who is creating what might be termed a physiological theory of mind–follows: “MIT scientists in Rebecca Saxe’s “Saxelab”—officially the Social Cognitivie Neuroscience Laboratory—already had techniques to identify the source of judgments and intentions in the brain. Now they have the power, via magnetic interference, to alter those ideas. Saxe’s earlier studies show a particular section of the brain is highly active when a person thinks about someone’s intentions, thoughts and beliefs. By disrupting activity there—with a magnetic zap applied through a device attached to the scalp—you can alter the process of judgment. Rather then intuition or personal bias, the judger must now rely more on facts and outcomes.”  (http://www.improper.com/features/the-big-picture/); http://saxelab.mit.edu/index.php