The Role and Impact of Public History Projects

The Role and Impact of Public History Projects: A Lecture and Workshop

Public history represents one of the most dynamic branches of the field of history today. Projects based on its vision are designed to take history into the real world, i.e. to a wide variety of communities, in an array of different formats and in accessible spaces with the aim of fostering interactivity and open debates. These projects still document and preserve history but are also keen on disclosing their methodology and are comfortable addressing contested narratives and places. Ultimately public history makes the past constantly present by addressing topical issues in our society. Our guest, Mirco Carrattieri, will share his decade-long experience in bridging academia and the community as part of projects that range from technology-supported initiatives to the simple act of walking through history. While the focus of his lecture and workshop will be Italian history, he will place it in a transnational context, involving Europe at large, Africa, and the US with particular reference to colonialism and the diaspora.

Mirco Carrattieri is one of the leading figures in the field of Public History in Italy, and Europe at large. A researcher affiliated with the University of Bergamo, he has published on topics related to WWI and WWII resistance fighters as well as Italian historiography in the fascist era. He was the General Director of the Ferruccio Parri National Institute in Milan, an institution founded to preserve and study the documentary heritage of the Volunteer Corps of Freedom and of the National Liberation Committee during WWII. He has also directed the Museum of the Republic of Montefiorino and of the Italian Resistance, which he represented in the creation of the Memory Landscapes network. Among the several public history projects he has coordinated: “So distant, so close,” the ResistenzApp, and the e-book The Resistance in Italy.

His current work focuses on the methodology and implementation of public history projects as seen in his article “For an Italian Public History” in Contemporary Italy, and the Storie in Pubblico (Stories in Public) series published by Unicopli which he directs together with Valeria Galimi. He is Italy’s chief scholarly consultant and a member of the international scientific committee for the Liberation Route Europe project, a transnational memorial in the form of a trail connecting WWII remembrance sites and stories across the continent.

1. PUBLIC LECTURE

The Liberation Route: A Public History Project to Experience the Allied Operation in Italy and Europe At Large