Introduction to Public Humanities | PHUM-2010

Persephone Allen
Tuesdays 1:30–4:00 pm

This course will address the theoretical bases of the public humanities, including topics of history and memory, museums and memorials, the roles of expertise and experience, community cultural development, and material culture.

Curatorial Practice and Change | PHUM-2011

Akeia de Barros Gomes
Mondays 3–5:30 pm

This course engages in theoretical and practical aspects of engaging in public histories and curating exhibitions. It will explore various methodologies for creating exhibitions and engage in institutional critique. It will also look at community practice, and museum and historical projects in public contexts.

The Visual: Art, Public History and Social Change | PHUM-2018

Anthony Bogues
Thursdays, 4:00-6:30 pm

We live in a visual age. The visual has become the language in which ideas are expressed and visual narratives shape both our imagination and the dominant common sense of a society. The visual has also become a venue for public history, the telling of historical stories. This course will explore various forms of the visual – art and cinema and how these forms and their aesthetic practices go beyond imaginaries of representations but are themselves forms of archives and contribute to the field of public history. A critical question in this course will be - can the visual change the consciousness and impulses of human beings? Can it act as a catalyst of social change? 

Methods in Public Humanities | AMST-2221J

(Students must register for AMST-2221J | Advanced Projects in Public Humanities to fulfill the Methods in Public Humanities requirement)

Elena Shih
Fridays 3-5:30

This course serves as an advanced project- or research-based course for graduate students working in the public humanities. We focus on various methodological approaches to public humanities and will be guided by the topical interests of each cohort, focusing on the strengths of research clusters in Brown's Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Final projects will take various forms including: Master's degree theses, public exhibitions, collaborative curatorial projects, and/or public education initiatives.

Decolonization of Museums: Nations, Museums, Anti Colonialism and the Contemporary Moment | PHUM-2023

Anthony Bogues
Thursdays 4–6:30 pm

Museums are spaces of collection and representation. They are also keepers of knowledge. Museum collections and knowledge are constructed through distinctive power relations. There are of course different kinds of museums but the ethnographic museum has been one center piece of colonial collections. This course will examine how the collections of many museums were established. After this historical collection working through an genealogical method the course will then pay attention to the contemporary debates and practices of various attempts to decolonize various museums. In this regard we will pay attention to four museums: the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam; the British museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts and to the National Art Gallery of South Africa.

Courses of Interest for Public Humanities Electives | PHUM XLIST

Check Courses@Brown under PHUM XLIST for courses that have a public humanities component. These courses are recommended as electives to students in the Public Humanities MA program and will count toward degree completion. Please refer to the primary department for registration details.

Slavery & Justice Courses

Slavery & Justice Courses in the 1000 to 2000 level may also be of interest to Public Humanities students and can count as electives.

View S&J Courses