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HISP 635: Social and Ethnic Issues in Historic Preservation Practice

Web page created by Patti Cossard, Subject Librarian for Architecture and Historic Preservation

Patricia Kosco Cossard, M.A., M.L.S.
Office Phone: (301) 405-6316
Office: Architecture Library
Office Hours: by appointment
Email: pcossard@umd.edu
FAX: (301) 314-9583

Course Instructor: Angel David Nieves

The University of Maryland Libraries have many resources that will help with research for HISP 635 research project. If you need additional information, please contact Patti Cossard.

Because of licensing agreements, access to bibliographic databases and electronic journals is restricted to UM faculty, staff, and students. These may be accessed from off campus; consult Remote access for further information. For a complete list of electronic resources available to University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students, as well as information about the full range of library materials and services, consult the UM Libraries' home page.
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OUTLINE

Course Description/Overview This seminar examines the broader social and ethnic dimensions of historic preservation practice that have impacted the field since the "culture wars" of the 1990's. Cultural studies, queer theory, post-colonial studies, critical race theory, gender studies, etc. will continue to transform the ways in which practitioners approach the study, documentation, and preservation of sites throughout the US and abroad. Through weekly case studies of local, national, and international sites, students will explore these issues and apply newly emerging methodologies to their final case study projects. The final project of the course entails a "hands-on community-based project. Each student will contribute their own individual research paper based on a larger theme/topic relevant to the course objectives.


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Primary Research Skills:

  • Site Description
  • Biography
  • Contextual History
  • Ethnography
  • Methodological approaches: e.g, cultural studies, queer theory, post-colonial studies, critical race theory, gender studies, etc.

    Why site might be significant according to these methodologies?

    Sources for methodological approaches:

  • Keith H. Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache. (required textbook)
  • Breena Clarke, River, Cross My Heart. (required textbook)
  • Paul A. Shackel, Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape. (required textbook)
  • John R. Bowen, “Culture, Genocide, and a Public Anthropology,” in Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (University of California Press, 2002).
  • Setha M. Low, “Anthropological-Ethnographic Methods for the Assessment of Cultural Values in Heritage Conservation” in Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage (The Getty Conservation Institute, the J. Paul Getty Trust, 2002).
  • Michael Shermer & Alex Grobman, “Chapter 9: The Rape of History: Denial, Revision, and the Search for A True and Meaningful Past,” Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It (University of California Press, 2000).
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    RESEARCH QUESTIONS: A list of questions that helps to shape your rationale for site selection and related issues of significance.

    The final project requires you to choose a "controversy" in historic preservation, one that deals with a social or ethnic issue in the field, and explore what's happened at the site (or former site). This exploration must engage issues of memory, authenticity, erasure, absence, etc. when looking at sites that have to do with marginalized groups.

    To evaluate the site, building, or place’s significance, the researcher must answer descriptive, biographical, and contextual questions.


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    DESCRIPTION: How large is the site, building, or place, where is it located, or what are its boundaries? How many buildings, structures, and other resources make up the site, building, or place? What changes have been made since its initial construction and when? How have these changes affected the historic integrity? What was the historic function/use of the site, building, or place? How is it used today?

    BIOGRAPHY: Who occupied/used the site, building, or place historically? who is the current owner/user? When and by whom was the site, building, or place designed and constructed? Was the site, building, or place associated with any important events, activities, persons or groups?


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    CONTEXT: How did/does the site, building, or place historically affect the activities, persons or groups? How did/does the site, building, or place historically change as different issues faced the events activities, persons or groups associated with it? Why is it important as a marker?

      Text Sources: Almanacs, Encyclopedias, Local Histories, Commercial Histories, Community/County Histories, Websites, Pamphlets, Books, Journal and Newspaper Articles


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    PROBLEM STATEMENT: A brief summary of major preservation issues and the value of the proposed project to the larger field of historic preservation. Should answer these questions: How do we define history? What constitutes “preservation history?” What is historic preservation anyway?

    Sources for general issues:

  • (R) Ned Kaufman, “Moving Forward: Futures for a Preservation Movement” in Giving Preservation A History (Routledge, 2004).
  • (R) Antoinette J. Lee, “Chapter 12: The Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Historic Preservation,” in A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century, UNC Press, 2003 – pgs. 385-404
  • (R) Russell V. Keune, “Chapter 11: Historic Preservation in a Global Context: An International Perspective,” A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century (UNC Press, 2003).
  • (R) Eric Foner, “Chapter 7: Who Is An American?,” Who Owns History? Remaking the Past in a Changing World (Hill and Wang, 2002).


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    HISTORIC CONTEXT/BACKGROUND: Historic context provides the historical background that makes any single resource or groups of resources understandable. Historic contexts address major historical themes that produced certain types of resources. For example, developments in educational history resulted in new types of school buildings; new classroom arrangements; new types of spaces, e.g., science laboratories, music rooms, and libraries; and related landscapes, e.g., playing fields. The range of historic resources/places that can be documented by preservationists is very broad.


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    BIBLIOGRAPHY: Annotated list of preliminary bibliographic sources (minimum of 10).

    Citation style: Chicago Manual of Style is the preferred style guide for citations in the field. See the libraries' Reference Shelf for style guides. This library guide is available to help with creating a Bibliography

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    How to get to the Text Sources you need:

    Almanacs, Encyclopedias, Local Histories, Commercial Histories, Community/County Histories, Pamphlets, Books:
    Search by place, organization, community in the
    online catalog
    If you don't find enough books on your topic at the UM Libraries, search WorldCat

    World Wide Web Websites: Search by place, organization, community in Google

    Newspaper Articles: Search by place, organization, community in Lexis Nexis

    Journal Articles: Search by place, organization, community in these databases

    There are a number of library guides and course related webpages available to help with Historical Research:

  • Latin American Studies
  • Women's Studies

    What if we don't have the source you need? Use Interlibrary Loan

    Selected List of Preservation Journals
  • American Anthropologist
  • American Heritage
  • American Visions
  • Americas (Organization of American States)
  • Annals of Tourism Research
  • Australasian Journal of American Studies
  • City & Society
  • Heritage: The Magazine of the New York State Historical Association
  • Historic Environment
  • Historic Preservation
  • Historic Preservation Forum
  • International Journal of Heritage Studies
  • International Research in Geographical and environmental Education
  • Journal of American Ethnic History
  • Journal of Urban History
  • Landscape
  • Museum International
  • New York Times
  • Preservation
  • Public Historian
  • Race & Class
  • Smithsonian
  • Social Analysis
  • South African Geographical Journal
  • Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
  • Tampa Bay History
  • Western Journal of Black Studies

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    Last modified: March 14, 2007

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