Beyond Aesthetics and Exclusion: New Directions in Historic Preservation and Public History
Edited by
Kathleen Powers Conti, Assistant Professor of History, Florida State University
Frank Ordia, Lecturer of Architecture, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
How do communities practice historic preservation and public history while advocating for themselves, their histories, and their environment? How do structural and implicit biases affect how preservation is legislated, implemented, and taught? What should the future of preservation and public history look like, especially in light of climate change, questions of accessibility, and calls for racial justice?
This edited interdisciplinary volume seeks to curate a broad selection of case studies from practitioners, community members, and academics that delve into contemporary issues that are often unaddressed. We strongly encourage submissions by and/or those highlighting the contributions of underrepresented individuals in historic preservation, public history, architecture, planning, and other related fields. We believe that your contribution is instrumental to not only advance understanding of systemic inequities but also shape the direction of how we address those issues.
We welcome chapter submissions that challenge conventional approaches and spark change in perspective and practice through topics such as:
•The role of historic preservation and public history in marginalized, underrepresented, and historically disenfranchised communities
•Critical perspectives on resilience within preservation in the face of climate change and natural disasters, especially new approaches at the planning, policy, systems, and building scales
•Exclusionary aspects of historic preservation and public history, particularly related to disability, race, gender and sexuality, and socio-economic factors, among others
•Archives as social justice, including through oral history
•Creative public history interpretation and place-making, particularly at sites of demolition
•Innovative approaches to accessibility and adaptive reuse, especially for affordable housing and lower-income property owners
•Innovative pedagogical approaches, both in the classroom and in the community
•De-colonizing policy, practice, and education
•Labor, wages, and working conditions within preservation and public history
•Ways to combat the field’s exclusionary tendencies for prioritizing aesthetics and monumental architecture built for those who traditionally wielded power
Submission requirements: Please submit a chapter proposal of 500-700 words and a brief bio to Conti.Ordia@gmail.com by August 1, 2023. Please feel free to email us with any questions. Contributors will be notified in September, with final chapters (5,000 to 7,000 words, including citations), due January 10, 2024. *This volume is currently under consideration with a leading academic press*
