Public History MA student, Tanmai Vemulapalli, Awarded Funding to Present Poster at International Conference

Second year Public History MA student, Tanmai Vemulapalli, received funding from the History Department to present a poster at the International Federation for Public History’s 7th World Conference in Luxembourg. We asked Tanmai to share her story about the conference.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to attend and present a poster at the International Federation for Public History’s 7th World Conference in Luxembourg this year. I appreciated the breadth of projects that fit within the umbrella of public history, and I was able to engage with scholarship that reflected my learning in grad school as well as pushed me to think in new ways.

One of the working groups was centered on the subject of silence, moving away from silencing and erasure toward other shapes and possibilities of silence. This was one of the most energizing panels of the entire conference for me because it brought up many ideas, questions, and experiences around both personal and academic encounters with silence. I connected with two of the panelists, Gerlov Van Engelenhoven and Bareez Majid from Leiden University, and I hope to stay in touch with them and their research on migration, colonialism, and silences. It was fruitful to have conversations with many of the scholars there, to find connections between our work, and to be inspired by ongoing projects.

I also attended a session on relationships between public history scholars in Latin America and Africa, where people discussed the potential for learning across these spaces and the need for more Global South scholars at IFPH. There is still effort and work required to broaden the representation of scholars from the Global South. Though the hybrid digital and in-person format expanded the scope of who could present and participate, they weren’t able to engage in conversation and connection in the same way.

My poster presentation went well. I had great conversations with scholars who came up and engaged with it. I presented a poster of my final project from Introduction to Public History, where we had to create a detailed proposal using historical resources to meet a community need. My project focused on using zines to share contemporary resources and relevant histories of resistance to people seeking abortions in a restrictive and surveilled environment in Texas. The method of hand-making, photocopying, and hand-delivering the zines is meant to maintain privacy and circumvent surveillance. Through my conversations, I learned of various initiatives who were doing similar work, including Graphic Medicine Collective and Welcome Trust, who produce medical zines for access to healthcare knowledge. One of the scholars encouraged me to reach out to Graphic Medicine Collective, or others who might be interested in carrying forward a project like this. The support and engagement I received sparked a desire to see if there are ways to connect it to something concrete and implement it, even if not fully.

I am grateful for the opportunity to attend this conference. I was exposed to diverse and energizing scholarship, and I was able to connect with scholars in different capacities. I hope to keep in touch with many of them, and reach out to others. Overall, I enjoyed the atmosphere of exchange, and I gained confidence in myself as a scholar.