Cultural Landscapes & Public History

I found the readings interesting and engaging, and was able to curl up and actually enjoy them. This is often a feeling unobtainable from required readings, but nonetheless I enojoyed all of the readings. I appreciated that chapter 1 offered a few defintions of cultural landscapes, since I have often heard the term tossed around, but never paid attention. The defintion on page viii, that cultural landscapes are “complex sets of environments that support all human lives and all social groups,” seems especially applicable to public history since our definition for public history is that it is history done by, for, and of the public, who would of course be responsible for the cultural landscapes around them.

I found other aspects from the reading applicable to public history. On page 161, in the introduction to the section containing chapter 11, there was a brief discussion about writing with accessibility so as not to isolate “perspectives, disciplines, professions, discourses, and publics.” When I think of public history, this is integral for any interpretation. You do not need to “dummy” down history for the public to understand; you need to engage your audience in a way that speaks to them. Interest in history can often be inspired by places, so using J.B. Jackson’s questions about a new place: “How do places like this come to exist?” “How do they work?” and “What do they mean to us today?” I also think in any public history endeavors, especially in the academy, we need to keep in mind Jackson’s disappointment in the academicization of landscape studies; if we allow dull and dry interpretations to pervade into the public eye, then we will be successful in making public history unaccessible to its very consumers. We will ask the same question that Jackson did about landscape studies: “Why must public history be so dull, so lacking in insight and emotion?” (p75).