About
The Public History Initiative (PHI), launched in fall 2019, is based in the Department of History in the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University. The PHI works to stimulate and deepen dialogue among undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and their wider communities about the sedimented histories that shape our contemporary world.
Public history is any form of historical engagement that moves beyond the traditional classroom and scholarly publication. Public history can include monuments, museum and digital exhibits, oral history, historical preservation, walking tours, performance, documentary film, and other media projects.
The PHI asks students to think critically about diverse modes of historical learning and storytelling and the many ways historical knowledge circulates in public life: Whose histories are privileged and silenced? What strategies can we use to uncover and share knowledge of the past? How does history shape experiences of identity and community? And how can public history help us to better understand society and politics today?
The PHI specifically works to engage the Cornell community through an undergraduate minor, undergraduate and graduate fellowships, as well as an ongoing event series.
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.