magazén International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities

Journal | magazén
Monographic journal issue | 2 | 2 | 2021
Research Article | What is the Public of Public History? Between the Public Sphere and Public Agency

What is the Public of Public History? Between the Public Sphere and Public Agency

Abstract

Public history constitutes a historical field, it includes several related journals, membership organisations, research centres, undergraduate and graduate programs all over the world. Most importantly, Public History has been marked by growing historiography and an increasing public interest in history. However, there is a lack of research on the most important constituent element of Public History, the ‘public’. The aim of this paper is to shed light on how Public History has approached the public in the last four decades. By focusing on the two different forms the public has taken, the public sphere and the public agency, the paper examines the notion of the public as it appeared in the historiography and how it determined the epistemology and methodology of Public History.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Jan. 12, 2021 | Accepted: Sept. 13, 2021 | Published Dec. 10, 2021 | Language: en

Keywords Historiography of Public HistoryPublic agencyPublic HistoryPublicPublic sphere

Subtags Institutions Epistemology Society Communication Textual data Documents Participation Communities Discourse


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