Dr. Julia Rose’s book Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), tackles the extraordinary challenges of interpreting histories of slavery, war, genocide and mass oppression.
“More and more historic sites are turning toward uncomfortable and difficult topics. Dr. Rose offers in her work a look at where this field is going and how we can sensitively engage visitors who will be coming to us with diverse backgrounds and expectations.””
Difficult histories pose significant resistances and challenges for museum workers and visitors. Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites offers public historians, museum workers, and educators a much needed resource to interpret histories of slavery, war and trauma. How do we engage visitors in histories that are traumatic, controversial, and shocking? With the rise of social history since the mid-20th century, history workers, scholars and educators are grappling with how to engage learners and museum visitors in histories that can be too much to bear.
The book provides a sensitive strategy, Commemorative Museum Pedagogy (CMP), which is based in learning theories that are well clearly described. Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites is framed by education psychoanalytic theory and positions museum workers, public historians and museum visitors as learners. Through this lens, history workers and educators can develop compelling and ethical representations of historic individuals, communities and populations who have suffered.