Events

August 29, 2019

Did you know that American Social History Project Podcast (ASHP Podcast) has published over eighty episodes? With topics ranging from slavery and anti-slavery imagery to women’s history and women’s activism, and to border, immigration and citizenship, ASHP Podcast has presented subjects of interest to teachers and the public.

Our podcast is drawn from ASHP’s public seminars and professional development programs with scholars, activists, and educators working in social and public history. In the latest podcast, humanities scholar Maryanne Trasciatti (Hofstra University) shares the work of the Remembering the Triangle Fire Coalition, which is leading the effort to build a public art memorial to the 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. The episode was recorded at ASHP’s public seminar, “Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City,” held at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Subscribe and download episodes of ASHP Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Leave a review of the podcast, and subscribe to our biannual newsletter.

In partnership with The Gotham Center for New York City History and the CUNY Public History Collective, ASHP is hosting a series of public programs titled Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation. The series brings together historians, art historians, community activists, and artists to discuss the ongoing reevaluation of public monuments and memorials and to engage with audiences about the often controversial histories represented.

ASHP held the first event, Monuments as: History / Art / Power on June 13, 2018. The panel presented a case study of the former J. Marion Sims monument on Fifth Avenue and 104th Street, and examined the historical context of Sims’s medical research and experimentation on enslaved women, the modern East Harlem community response to his current memorialization, and future possibilities for remembering this difficult history.

The second event, Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City will be held on October 9, 2018 and will discuss the history of monument creation, visions for new projects, and the current pressures on New York City agencies to respond to public opinion. Participants will include Michele Bogart, author of the new Sculpture in Gotham: Art and Urban Renewal In New York City; Mary Anne Trasciatti, President, “Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition;” Jack Tchen, Professor of Public History and the Humanities, Rutgers University; and will be moderated by Todd Fine, History Doctoral Candidate, CUNY Graduate Center, and advocate of the monument for “Little Syria.”

A third and final event, focused on alternative approaches to confronting and constructively addressing how difficult histories are memorialized in New York City and throughout the country, will be held on February 6, 2019. Further information will be posted closer to the date of the program.

All events are held in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center and are free and open to the public. The series is made possible with funding from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Visit https://ashp.cuny.edu/difficult-histories-public-spaces-series-public-programs to learn more about the upcoming programs.

Historian Martha Biondi of Northwestern University will discuss her work on the Black Power movements on campuses across the country and the rise of African-American Studies programs. Her research includes case studies of several universities, including CUNY’s Brooklyn College. Thursday, April 30, 2015 6 – 8 pm, Skylight Room, 9th Floor of The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.

Bridging Historias: Latino/a History and Culture in the Community College Classroom
Friday, May 8, 2015 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue, NYC

Since fall 2013, ASHP-CML has been working with thirty-eight community college faculty and administrators to assist them in incorporating material on Latino history and culture into their community college curricula. This project has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Join us for an exciting culminating full-day conference, in which we will hear from top scholars in the field, further our learning, and share classroom approaches and activities on this important topic. The keynote speaker will be Vicki Ruiz, Dean, School of Humanities, University of California, Irvine. Faculty participants will offer panels, roundtable discussions, workshops, and poster sessions. Bring your lessons, your curiosity, your creativity and join in this conversation.
Click here for full program and registration.

The history of the City University of New York and the championing of public higher education are the focus of a new initiative involving present and past CUNY faculty, staff, and students along with libraries, archives, and collections in and outside of the university. Coordinated by ASHP/CML, the CUNY Digital History Archive will collect the stories in text, sound, and image of the many events, people, and communities that have been critical to the university’s democratic mission. These materials will be made available to the public as an open access repository and also will direct users to valuable records and resources located at CUNY campuses.

A public program on Wednesday, April 9th, at 6:30 pm in the Martin Segal Theatre at the Graduate Center will mark the launch of the CUNY Digital History Archive. Featuring two roundtable discussions−”The Fight for Open Admissions and Its Early Implementation across CUNY, 1968-1976″ and “Student Activism and the Fight against State and City Cutbacks and Attacks, 1985-2014″−the event will involve activists in the struggle for and defense of Open Admissions from the late-1960s to the present, who will describe their experiences and offer insights about the past and its implications for the future. Please mark your calendars and check the ASHP/CML homepage in late February for details about this event.

“Is There Anything More to See? Civil War Photography and History,” the third in a series of public programs sponsored by ASHP/CML marking the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, is now available online. The event took place at the City University Graduate Center last November and featured leading scholars of the war and photography, including Anthony Lee (Mount Holyoke College), Mary Niall Mitchell (University of New Orleans), Martha Sandweiss (Princeton University), and Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University). The speakers discussed the persistence of photography’s influence over the vision of the Civil War, and some of the critical historical questions the medium’s record of the war addresses, distorts, and ignores. The program is can be downloaded as podcasts.

Come to the Martin Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center on Thursday, November 3, 2011, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, for the third of our public seminars marking the sesquicentennial of the start of the U.S. Civil War. Supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities, previous programs in the series brought together leading scholars and educators to discuss recent trends in the study of the conflict and the gap between scholarly and popular understanding of the war.

At the November 3rd event, entitled “Is There Anything More to See? Civil War Photography and History,” Anthony Lee (Mount Holyoke College), Mary Niall Mitchell (University of New Orleans), Martha Sandweiss (Princeton University), and Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University) will discuss the persistence of photography’s influence over the vision of the Civil War, and what remains to be learned from the medium and the war’s visual record. Among other questions, the panelists will discuss photography’s impact on Americans’ perceptions of the conflict in the past and how the meanings and uses of the visualization of the war have changed over time.

The event is free of charge and organized in collaboration with the Ph.D. Program in History, the Ph.D. Program in Art History, and the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center. Click here for more on the event and the Civil War @ 150 series. And if you can’t attend the event, podcasts of the three programs will be available on the ASHP/CML website by the end of the year.