The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
What is a “contested city” and how does one engage its historical layers? Few cities can be described as contested as Rijeka, a metropolis that has been under the Hapsburgs, Italy, Yugoslavia, and finally Croatia. Brigitte Le Normand, an associate professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and project director for Rijeka in Flux, has […]
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Begun in the fall of 2016 by California State University Fresno historians Sean Slusser and Romeo Guzman (now at the Claremont University), “Straight Outta Fresno” (SOF) provides a view into the burgeoning “popping” scene that emerged among multi-ethnic and multi-racial hip hop fans of 1980s and 1990s Fresno. As co-founder Slusser discusses below, though a […]
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By Matt Guariglia and Charlotte Rosen The purpose of the Disciplining the Nation project is to make the history of policing, incarceration, and criminalization in the United States more accessible and teachable by highlighting the documents which shaped it. In addition to looking at specific documents, we also want to highlight specific public history projects […]
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Alex Sayf Cummings is a professor of History at Georgia State University and the author of Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of Copyright in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2013) and Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy (Columbia, 2020). She is also a co-editor of East of East: The Making of Greater […]
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By Avigail Oren The recent work of historical anthropologist Katherine Hayes has focused on decolonizing the narratives interpreted at public heritage sites, including St. Paul’s Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote. The United States military constructed Fort Snelling in 1819-20 to protect the area’s fur trade, a role it served until Minnesota gained statehood in 1858 […]
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In Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, the narrator speaks ominously of a coming sickness: “In the whole face of things, as I say, was much altered: sorrow and sadness sat upon every face; and though some parts were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply concerned; and as we saw it apparently […]
Read MoreVayne Ong Senior, History and Urban Studies Princeton University @vaynewyong Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? For my senior thesis, I’m researching the myths that emerged around which places were destroyed or preserved in the 1992 Rodney King urban rebellion. For example, why did a McDonald’s at the heart of the […]
Read MoreKevin McQueeney PhD Candidate in History Georgetown University @KevMcQueeney Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am currently finishing my dissertation, which examines the rise and perpetuation of the apartheid healthcare system, racial health disparity, and the black struggle for improved health and access to healthcare in New Orleans. I became […]
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Editor’s note: It’s the penultimate installment of Digital Summer School 2019! The editorial staff of the newly-launched site PLATFORM discuss why they chose the blog format and what challenges arise when you try to bridge the divide between architecture and politics. For all other DSS 2019 courses scroll down to the bottom for links. Knowing […]
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Editor’s note: With the July 4th holiday behind us and summer in full swing, The Metropole brings you our second annual Digital Summer School, our effort to highlight digital humanities projects focusing on urban history. First up, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Chris Cantwell and the digital project Gathering Places, Religion and Community in Milwaukee. Why did you […]
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