Teaching Serial as Public History
Photo credit: Kate Preissler I took a risk this semester and dedicated a fairly large chunk of class time to teaching Serial in Intro to Public History. It was placed in the syllabus as a bridge between a unit on memory, identity and different publics and a unit on settings and tools for public history practice. I was inspired to do this by my own engagement with the podcast ( errrr, obsessive binge listening ) and by some great email conversations with Kate Preissler, Digital Projects Manager at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA, who wrote a fabulous blog post on Serial and public history for the NCPH blog. In case you've been under a rock, Serial was a hugely popular podcast that ran for twelve episodes last autumn. It examined the murder of high school student Hae Min Lee in 1999 in Baltimore and pulled apart the evidence used to successfully convict Lee's ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed -- who pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocen...