Constructing a Public Historical Narrative

Rather than creating a Bryn Mawr public history project, I am looking to an existing history project in Berlin.

“Vom Reichstag zum Bundestag”

Constructing a Public Historical Narrative for Reunified Germany

Screen Shot 2016-04-24 at 11.46.00 PM

Looking to theories of film, history, spectacle, and architectural design, I hope to examine the space for film consumption in Berlin’s new government district as part of the political rhetoric of democracy as the inherently superior form of governing put forth by the German government. Berlin is a city rich with monuments—old and new— often ones that are mostly abstract and relying heavily on the power of metaphor. The buildings across the river from the Reichstag are prime examples of this type of new monument. Though these buildings are new, they serve similar functions as their older counterparts. Both old and new monuments for government districts use the power of spectacle to enhance a sense of national pride and unity. Government monuments also serve to root themselves within certain historical narratives.

Screen Shot 2016-04-24 at 11.46.35 PM

People watching the projections from the steps to the Spree. The Reichstag can be seen behind them.

The film and light show in Berlin’s government district functions to support a type of national pride and tell the correct version of German political history. This particular film focuses on the history of the Reichstag building from the late 19th century to today. The show uses old strategies of spectacle and collective-making and new technologies of film, light displays, and sound on modern architecture to give it a fresh feel and distance itself from historical uses of the same space in Berlin.

Screen Shot 2016-04-24 at 11.47.47 PM

There are two main components that I would like to study: (1) the permanent aspects of the constructed space (the memorial, the buildings, and the steps) and (2) the temporary ones (light and film projections).

More info on the projections and the buildings:

Marie Lüders Haus in the daytime. Memorial below

Marie Lüders Haus in the daytime. Memorial below

Since 2012, from the end of June until the celebrations on German Unity Day on October 3rd there is a light show and film projected onto the Marie-Elisabeth Lüders House in Berlin along the Spree River tracing the story of the Reichstag building from the late 19th century to today. The film projected is titled “Dem deutschen Volke — Eine parlamentarische Spurensuche. Vom Reichstag zum Bundestag,” which can be translated as “For the German people – Tracing the Parliament. From Reichstag to Bundestag.” The film is created by the government and is in German with English and German subtitles, indicating that the film is also for a non-German speaking, probably tourist audience.

Paul-Löbe-Haus (left) and Reichstag (right)


The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders House, completed in 2003, with the Federal Chancellory and Paul-Löbe-House form part of “Federal Row” designed as an architectural symbol of German unity. A bridge across the Spree connects the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders House and Paul-Löbe-House, each on either side of the former wall, symbolizing the connection between East and West Berlin and also connecting the past to the present with the naming of the buildings. Below the Lüders House there is a memorial to the Berlin Wall.

Here is a Map of Government District to get a better sense of the space.

Picture of me celebrating 25 years of German Unity with another American friend, Coca-Cola

Picture of me celebrating 25 years of German Unity with a fellow American, Coca-Cola

Fred Wilson and Montage




Forrest Gump, Titanic, and Winking at History


-Rebecca Onion, “Snapshots of History

While I understand Onion’s concern, this is why so many of the historical pictures on twitter are of subjects that are already famous and studied. There is already a fair amount written about Jimi Hendrix, Barrack Obama, Marilyn Monroe, and their other famous counterparts. It then makes the potential searching that people could do easier than if there was a photo posted of a non-famous person or event.

I just watched the 1997 film Titanic again (for a class) this week. Something that I hadn’t been fully aware of the previous times I watched the film was the art that Rose has with her on the ship. She picks up a Picasso and remarks, “They’re fascinating. It’s like being inside a dream or something. There’s truth but no logic” to which her fiancé Cal replies “Something Picasso? He won’t amount to a thing.” The lines are no doubt idiotic sounding and serve the purpose of making Cal sound like a moron. But they also reflect a larger trend in movies “winking at” history. I use this word because there is never any complexity (which Onion calls for) and usually little accuracy in their depiction. It is a simple flash of a famous historical person, object, or event that serves to make the audience smile or laugh. In the Titanic example, the featured Picasso painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, was never on the Titanic and is now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Many movies play with these types of historical “winks” such as Forrest Gump (which Onion names) and more recently Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Their purpose is not to complicate prior constructed historical narratives around a topic or artifact nor is it to even portray the basic history accurately. While I share Onion’s concern for public historical education, I think it is only a problem when this watered down version of history, without the potential to enjoy the dive into “the historical rabbit hole” is the only version people are receiving. There is a potential to follow @historyinpics, watch Forrest Gump, see Hamilton, and read The Vault blog. I don’t feel there needs to be one proper way to consume history.

To address my own bias, I love movies like Midnight in Paris. If I participated in Twitter, I would no doubt follow things like @historyinpics. I like feeling like I have an inside look into characters in history, who are often talked about and depicted in such a polished way. Like reading a tabloid’s “Stars—They’re Just like Us!” section, it feels nice to see pictures of historical icons differently and that make the topic or person more relatable. It feels even more magical than a tabloid actually, because not only are these people famous, they are also usually dead. This is why I don’t find these movies or Twitter accounts altogether problematic. They play with history and make it fun and approachable in a way that public historians who are tied more strictly to the facts cannot. When watching Titanic, I opened up my laptop and started doing research on the details of the Titanic’s sinking, about Picasso’s works aboard the ship, which led me to other historical inaccuracies the movie portrays. These depictions of history obviously do not help to bring to light the stories of average people, as a public historian showing artifacts from archives can do. However, it does make already famous histories more accessible and might encourage the curious layperson to seek out more information on the topic.

Space, Love, and Racism

Bill Bryans from Oklahoma State University expressed my concerns exactly about the renaming of Thomas in his reflections on the potential renaming of Murray Hall on his campus:

I believe using the question of Murray’s name on the building offers the opportunity for discussing just what has been the history of race and prejudice both in Oklahoma and on the campus.  Such a discussion, it seems to me will generate greater understanding and reconciliation going forward than simply removing his name.

Having spaces on campus that openly contradict the rosy historical narrative of steady progression that the other makers of campus history (PR/communications and marketing offices, diversity office, development, alumni affairs, etc.) construct is important. This is not the outward message of the school, but a story for those in the school to understand and make sense of. In some ways it would be false to remove the traces of racism that exist. Rather than remove the aspects of racism that exist, it would be meaningful to have all students at some point in their careers at their college (perhaps orientation, but maybe later) participate in a program like “Black at Bryn Mawr” or “Black and Blue” to understand fully the institution that they identify with. Complicating your understanding is a sometimes-difficult process when you attach so much love and affinity for campus spaces.

I think particularly of the description given by Elizabeth ’37 of space on Mount Holyoke’s Campus:

I have always been crazy about the reading room. As you know it’s a replica of Westminster Hall in London, on a somewhat smaller scale. . . . I was thrilled when I was given a carrel. Honor students were allowed to have carrels in the stacks. I loved it because it made me feel like a scholar (283).

Thinking back on Helen Horowitz and Alma Mater it is clear that these spaces are designed with particular ideas about what it means to be academic. Because these spaces are made to turn us into scholars and therefore empower us, it is difficult to simultaneously understand them as representing racism, bigotry, and inequality for others.

This is why I am attracted to the idea of creating a layered map, drawn from historical perspectives and also contemporary students’ understandings of campus spaces. Each layer can serve as different interpretations of the same space. I was quite impressed by the way Erin Bernard handled this in her maps. I think maps are most often seen as truth (and thus objective) whether they are topographical maps, political maps, or transportation maps, though clearly they never can be without bias. Having a map with multiple perspectives calls into question the “official” map and allows for more voices than just those in power to be heard.  There can be interpretations of spaces as fostering love and community but also racism and hate.

Wall Text and Objects

In reading “Making Meaning from Things in History Museums” I found myself questioning a lot of the statements made about history museums. For instance, Schiavo citing Conn states, “Museums—some of them anyway—may not need objects anymore, but without objects we may miss the delights and surprises that come with looking.” I think many history museums actually find the objects in their collection central to the work that they do. Perhaps the objects do not drive the stated mission of the museum, but they often drive the work of the curators and general staff of the museums. Often, exhibitions or programs are designed because the museum staff has great pride in a particular item in the collection that they want to showcase to the public.

I did appreciate in this article the discussion of wall text. Last year, I worked to design an exhibition at Bryn Mawr. The majority of time spent in this class was writing and editing wall texts. I agree with this article that reading ideas on a wall is not as exciting as visually understanding concepts through object interaction, as an “object wall” facilitates (Schiavo 51). In my class, I was often the only one arguing for little (or no) wall text. I think that usually it is the case that those who love the research surrounding the objects assume that putting that research on the wall is best. They do not believe that without the “lengthy labels with didactic lessons” there is actually more room for meaning making. I think the audience is there at the museum for the objects, not really for the lengthy content. They can get that anywhere now with technology. The objects are what make the museum special. We are visual creatures who would rather be shown something than told it.

Images of Activism and the Reality



How to Consume a Memorial

“It’s like Berlin. You see the devastation”

Poster of Friedrich Seidenstücker photograph. Reichstag, Berlin 1946.

Poster of Friedrich Seidenstücker photograph. Reichstag, Berlin 1948.

This comment by Joel Shapiro referring to his proposal that the World Trade Center site to Berlin in the decades after World War II struck me as odd. Berlin, in its current state, is full of very constructed, very planned new monuments and memorials. Perhaps because of the destruction that served as memorial in the decades after the war, Berlin is a prime example of a city deep in “memorial mania.” From memorials for the Berlin Wall and its victims, to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, to memorials of Soviet prison camps, Berlin keeps building new memorials and expanding existing ones. And these sites generate so much revenue. People come to Berlin to see these sites. However, in order to charge people money to remember, you need to build something. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is free, but has a museum that charges for various services, such as translation. The Hohenschönhausen memorial to political persecution in the GDR charges admission. Aside from direct revenue from visitors to the memorials, the city profits from tourists travelling to these various points of memorial. This begs the question: what is the purpose of a memorial, especially a memorial as large in scale as these? What should a memorial do to us, as the viewing public? How should we interact with the memorial? Should there be any money exchanged from public to memorial at all? Does your relationship to a memorial change when part of it is monetized?

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Berlin

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

People will pay to process the memorializing. The World Trade Center Memorial itself is free, but an adult ticket to the museum is $24. I visited the memorial in the spring of 2011 and the museum had not yet opened. Growing up outside of Manhattan, there were kids in my school that lost family members on 9/11. It was one of the most upsetting things to see people taking selfies in front of the reflecting pools. I came with an understanding that there was a very particular way to experience a memorial: to be somber, quiet, and reflective. Even if you had no connection to the people or moment being memorialized, you respected the space in that way, because other people around you might be connected. However, for other people around me at the memorial, it was like any other tourist attraction: something fun and interesting to pose with and then move on quickly to the next spot. The emotional disconnect that I felt between myself and the rest of the public was so intense. Rather than being a space of collective mourning or remembrance, it was a space of individualized consumption. Perhaps I think (or still think) too highly of public spaces of memorial. Maybe for most people, memorials are something to take a picture of, tell your friends you saw it, and move on. Is this because of the public? Or are we consuming memorials this way because the design of them guides us to do so? Or are we consuming memorials because we are paying to see them, directly or indirectly through transportation costs?

Selfie at Reflecting Pool 9/11 Memorial

Selfie at Reflecting Pool
9/11 Memorial

My experience at the World Trade Center Memorial influenced my decision not to go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. Instead, I stayed in Krakow. While wandering around the city, I came across a giant billboard with a smiling woman in front of the Auschwitz camp. It was advertising an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow titled “Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz.” This was exactly what I feared most about visiting the Auschwitz Memorial: being part of a collective having an entirely different emotional experience from me. I asked my friend when he returned to Krakow from the Auschwitz Memorial if he saw people taking pictures like the smiling woman. He said that he did and that it added a strange other layer to the experience of remembering to understand how others were engaging with the space. With all of this money spent on memorials, they still do not encourage public remembrance. Most are instead public art projects, like the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Therefore, they should be listed as such and other spaces should be given for public memorials.

Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz MOCAK Exhibit Ad

Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz
MOCAK Exhibit Ad

Science and Race

I am struck by a word that Craig Steven Wilder uses in the prologue to describe Henry Watson Jr. in Ebony & Ivy: “embodies” (Wilder 8). Wilder states that Watson’s career “embodies themes in the history of American colleges” (Wilder 8). Given our examination of archives and their focus on personal narrative, this presents an important framework. I wonder about the research process and deciding on one story that fits the themes covered in the book. Wilder begins his presentation of the relationships between American universities and race and slavery with a personal narrative of one man. I think this is a typical tactic for books of a similar nature to try to get the reader interested in a topic that is not in their academic field. To integrate detailed human experience into a survey of this topic is effective in allowing readers to connect with a specific person rather than trying to make them take on the whole topic, which a book geared towards fellow academics might do in its introduction.

I enjoyed the chapter about the colonial roots of racial science. As Wilder states, “Race did not come from science and theology; it came to science and theology” (Wilder 182). Racial ideas are instead an integral part of empire building and are incorporated into scientific and theological ideas to give them legitimacy. Reading this chapter, I was reminded of a time of scientific research, which I had forgotten: a time when science had to adhere to religious understanding. In this case, race and complexion needed to be explained given the existence of Adam and Eve (Wilder 187). Though the Enlightenment and the expansion of reason were at play, there was still a strong religious center in society. At the time when scientific theories of racial superiority were developing, they too had to fit within the religious mythology of the time. I have been fascinated by tales of racial origins which often are part-science, part-mythology. I am especially interested in how they take root and when they become “fact” for a society. As Wilder explains, American colleges cemented the validity of these “truths” about human difference (Wilder 193).

Bryn Mawr and the Seven Sisters differ from many of the institutions that Wilder discusses because the former were established after the abolition of slavery in the U.S. However, many of the same ideas about race, intelligence and education are present in both histories. As Wilder points out, “people of color came to campus only as servants and objects” (Wilder 3). Like Bryn Mawr in its earlier history, students did not see people of color as anything other than servants and objects and so scientific reasons for racial difference that were taught could paint people of color as incapable of intelligence.

The Bubble is Political


  • Who gets to be here?
  • What do you learn when you are here?
  • What are they training you to do?
  • Who does the institution choose to serve?








Websites Referenced

SGA Constitution:

Bryn Mawr Mission Statement:

Bryn Mawr Admissions:

Materials and Organization

I am increasingly interesting in the categories in which materials and information are placed and how those categories are ordered.   In browsing the Wikipedia pages for Bryn Mawr College and for Hilda Worthington Smith, they section headings in both entries were interesting to me. The Bryn Mawr College page was more striking because I have some awareness of Bryn Mawr and the image of the college that is put out to the general public. The Tri-College Consortium is mentioned in the second paragraph of the introduction, though the Quaker Consortium and Penn are put only in the section “Organization.” This is an accurate representation of the connection, or lack thereof, that the college has with Penn, but how would this have shown through in the resources that we put together for this entry? This is perhaps evidence of what Phillips and McDevitt-Parks describe as “open authority.” Wikipedia, they state, allows for dialogue between experts and the public in the digital world where everyone is a curator. I also found it interesting that “Sustainability” received its own section, because it seems as if this is not a major part of the college, but the Wikipedia contributors felt that it was significant enough for its section. These clickable titles carry meaning for the reader, so in creating a Wikipedia entry one must be careful about how information is divided.

The other label that I am interested in is “miscellaneous.” In the Rita Rubenstein Collection on the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry, there were many items that were put into categories such as “Miscellaneous Student Writings,” “Student Interviews and Miscellaneous Biographica Materials,” “Faculty Interviews and Miscellaneous Material,” and a section titled simply “Miscellaneous Material.”   In regards to the organization of resources this does not seem effective but I wonder if anyone has considered an alternative for archiving and arranging materials.