Prof Julia Laite reflects on the WIPHN Network Conference which took place in September 2022.

The What is Public History Now? conference was the first in-person event I’d helped plan after the two years of covid restrictions, and those two years (mostly spent working in a tiny spare bedroom) had given me plenty of opportunity to think about what worked—and what didn’t—at conferences; and what I valued most about them. I had already lost my taste for conventional 20-minute-paper conferences before covid disrupted them, and this format felt particularly ill-suited to a conference that sought to interrogate and celebrate history in public.

And so the conference planning team and I put together a programme that featured short roundtables, discussion and brainstorming sessions, project presentations, and student takeover panels. One of the highlights was having Steve Cross, a stand-up comedian and Wellcome engagement fellow, who came and made us laugh about history. He also mocked us mercilessly for answering questions (i.e. What is public history?) with more questions (i.e. What is the public? What is history?).  Another highlight was the food: the conference was catered by the fabulous folks at the Pitted Olive, a small Turkish café in Leigh Street, who stuffed us full of delicious brain fuel:  gozleme and burek and meze and more.

I think that it’s imperative that public history forums in universities be made accessible and welcoming, not least because universities are all too often closed and intimidating spaces for the very folks who are out in public making excellent history. If we want to make sure to include all public historians in our conversations, we need to make universities places that people want to be. This means thinking about bodies as well as minds, thinking about how best to use our precious in-person time together, and—of course—making space for informality and laughter. I really hope people came away from this conference with ideas in their heads and smiles on their faces.