About
The Guilbeau Center for Public History is an unparalleled research center dedicated to the study and practice of Public History. As a state and regional leader for public history, its projects receive national attention for their originality and contribution to the field. We are dedicated to helping public historians incorporate diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in their work and we focus on projects that decolonize public history. This means specifically that we support projects that seek to expose and dismantle systemic racism, sexism, ableism, antiLGBTQ+ bias and other various and invidious forms of discrimination that persist in mainstream society. As historians, we rely on rigorous historical research to demonstrate the distinctions between public memory, falsified historical narratives and evidence based historical facts.
The Guilbeau Center for Public History is housed in the Department of History, Geography & Philosophy at University of Louisiana, Lafayette. It is one of four research centers at the University’s College of Liberal Arts.
The Guilbeau Center offers new digital humanities tools for data analysis, archiving, and digital exhibits; video and audio recording equipment; scanners for maps and 3D objects and 3D printing. The Guilbeau Center also consists of a recording studio, conference room, and project space for the production of podcasts and documentary films, collection of oral histories, digitization of maps, curation of digital and analog history exhibits, organizing public history colloquia and training workshops in all the new software and technical equipment. The Guilbeau Center supports ongoing public history programming and courses for students at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
Statement on Anti-racism
The Guilbeau Center for Public History supports the movement taking place, across the nation, against the violent injustices carried out by police against Black folks. As part of our founding mission, we seek to overturn the systemic racism, sexism, ableism and anti-LGBTQ+ culture and policies through identifying and removing their reinforcement in the public history landscape, and by decolonizing history in mainstream institutions of culture and education. To the families of Trayford Pellerin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony Mcdade, Rayshard Brooks, Alton Sterling, and David McAtee, we send our deepest condolences in this time of mourning.
For suggested readings: #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd Reading List
