New Publication: Public History in Action

Resulting from an exciting PhD-course on Public Humanities at Uppsala University, headed by Maria Ågren and Sven Widmalm, recently an edited volume on public history was published. When I came to the office a couple of weeks ago, I found a handful of freshly printed copies, which made me very happy!

In “Public History in Action. Past and Present Practices of Making History Public”, we have explored several ways and techniques of how to engage the general public with academic historiography. Some examples are the creation of historic boardgames, Reddit threads, acting as an expert witness in land-disputes, worker’s history written by labourers themselves, and innovative ways of rethinking museal exhibitions. But the book contains many more.

I am grateful that I was able to contribute a chapter about an exciting event, Johan Gärdebo, Siegfried Evens, and I organised back in June 2019. At KTH’s former nuclear reactor hall (“R1”), we viewed together the last episode of HBO’s miniseries “Chernobyl”. It was a fascinating session that resulted in inspiring disccusions afterwards.

If academic history is supposed to be relevant to our societies, academics need to regularly interact with the broader public. This book provides several ideas on how this can be done.

The book is available here.

Citation:

Klüppelberg, Achim: Using Historical Media to Start a Public Debate on Nuclear Energy. Watching HBO’s “Chernobyl” 25 Metres Underground, in: Cornu, Armel/ Smedberg, Carl-Filip/ Vorminder, Sarah (eds.): Public History in Action. Past and Present Practices of Making History Public (Opuscula Historica Upsaliensia 61), Uppsala (Opuscula Historica Upsaliensia) 2023, 93-111.