1st Edition
Public History for a Post-Truth Era Fighting Denial through Memory Movements
Introduction
Part 1: Sites of Conscience
1 Snapshots from Memory Movements at the turn of the Millennium, Album 1: Heritage and Human Rights in New York, Nottinghamshire, Buenos Aires, and Cape Town
2 Snapshots from Memory Movements at the turn of the Millennium, Album 2: Truth without Accountability in Bangladesh, Czech Republic, Russia, U.S., and Senegal
3 Defining Memory, Dialogue, and Action
4 Assessing Impact
Part II: Guantánamo Public Memory and Reckoning with "Who We Are"
5 How GTMO’s History has been Shaped by Denial: Public Memory and Public Policy in America’s State of Exception
6 Remembering and Reckoning with GTMO
7 Mobilizing an International Memory Movement for GTMO
Part III: States of Incarceration
8 Public Memory and the U.S. Carceral State
9 Remembering Rikers: Participatory Public Memory for Public Policy
10 Local Stories, National Genealogy: Memory Movements Against Mass Incarceration
Part IV: Climates of Inequality
11 Historical Denial and the Climate Crisis
Conclusion
Appendix
Biography
Liz Ševčenko is Founding Director of the Humanities Action Lab, currently homed at Rutgers University-Newark, and was the Founding Director of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. She organizes coalitions for historical memory and redress, combining the visions and forces of people working in public history, social movements, and transitional justice. She lives in Brooklyn.
The denial of substantiated realities of the past is examined in Liz Ševčenko’s incisive contribution, which explores questions of truth, consensus, and power in public histories from several critical perspectives. Written in an accessible and clear style, it is punctuated by personal reflections and offers a lucid treatment of the subject. This breadth and depth make it a valuable addition to literature on this vital topic.
Florence Evans, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, in Museums & Social Issues
"Well written and richly detailed, Public History for a Post-Truth Era is a worthy addition to Routledge’s Global Perspectives in Public History series...Public historians and their students will find this book most useful as a behind-the-scenes guide, and historians of all types will appreciate the stimulating questions Ševčenko raises—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not—about facts, truth, historical method, and expertise."
Meredith H. Lair, George Mason University, in The Public Historian, Volume 46, Number 2, May 2024, pp. 172-174
