Book your calendars – the International Federation of Public History (IFPH) has launched their Call for papers (CFP) for the 2026 International Conference of Public History which will take place in September 2026.��

The 8th International Conference entitled, “The Public History of Difficult Pasts,” will be�� held in Lisbon, Portugal from September 7-11, 2026.��

Proposals are open now for panels, papers, and working groups:

Submit your panel proposal��.

Submit your paper proposal��.

Submit your Working Group proposal��.

All submissions are due by Nov 30, 2025.

For more information please follow the IFPH at:

Follow the IFPH (cc: ), the University of Luxembourg (cc: ) and the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (cc: ) for more details has they are announced.

IFPH: https://ifph.hypotheses.org/

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Please join us Thursday February 2, 2023 at 5:30pm ET virtually and in-person as we launch the “Enghelab Shod” Oral History Archive

In January, 2022, �Ӱ�ԭ�� Public History alumni Allison Margot Smith was interviewed about her work as a historical documentary filmmaker. She shares the ways in which she bridged the gap between practicing public history in her academic career to applying the skills that she learned at �Ӱ�ԭ�� into her post-graduate work.

Academic Background

Allison Margot Smith is a historian and historical documentary filmmaker who graduated from �Ӱ�ԭ�� University’s BA History program. As a part of her coursework, she completed the fourth-year course on how to make a historical documentary film.

She then did her MA in Public History at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University, which included an internship at Parks Canada. Her research, as a student, was on Black history in Canada and her final MA research project was a documentary film and research paper about 19th-century Black American abolitionist, Mary Ann Shadd, and her archive of letters that were almost lost in Canada. The film is entitled “”

Moving Beyond the Academy

After graduating, Allison worked at Parks Canada, where she made another documentary film. Separately, she worked as a member of a team on a film about the Doukhobors of Saskatchewan, and another film about the immigrant experience in Canada.

In 2021 she obtained funding from the Township of Rideau Lakes to make a series of historical documentary films about the township. The first film was “.”
Her second film for the township was just completed this past December, and is entitled “.” Canadian military historian, Tim Cook, praised her work on the Fettercairn story:

“This is a very fine historical product. It uses new archival photographs and documents to tell a little-known story from the Great War. Highly recommended for historians and educators.”

She recently released her third film in the series, “,” about the election riots in the township in the three years before the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. to view all three films in the series.

The Interview

Watch Allison’s interview with former CCPH Research Assistant, Danielle Mahon, as she discusses the creative decisions and historical research practices she incorporates into her films.

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Enghelab Shod [Farsi for “The Revolution Happened”] is a virtual oral history project on memories of the 1979 Iranian revolution. Our goal is to understand this grand historical event from the perspective of everyday folks who lived through it. We explore how people remember “the revolution” and with which places, dates, objects and emotions they associate these memories. Our project prioritizes documenting embodied and affective experiences as narrated through the lens of memory. This approach extends beyond common historiographies’ penchant for meta-narratives of political chronologies, and instead emphasizes the revolution as a complex lived experience that is diversely memorialized by people who live through it.

Captured here is an iconic moment in the 1979 revolution, the Shah leaving Iran. The headlines read: “Shah raft,” translated as “The Shah left” in English.
Ettela’at daily newspaper Jan. 16, 1979.	Kayhan daily newspaper Jan. 16, 1979.

Azar Masoumi, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

Ronak Ghorbani, Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change, York University

This project is based on professionally recorded oral history interviews with diasporic Iranians in Canada. In these interviews, we ask participants to describe how they learnt that “the revolution happened”: when, where, and how they began to name and recognize the ongoing political unrest as the culmination of a revolution. We also ask participants to share specific artifacts that are associated with these memories. The diverse age range of our participants provides rich insight in the experience of the revolution at various life stages, including in late childhood and adolescence.

The aim of this project is to create opportunities for intergenerational (and intercultural) communication about life amidst historical change, particularly for younger generations of Iranians for whom the “revolution” has been an abstract background to their lives. To do so, we are creating a publicly accessible online archive to showcase the recorded interviews and collected artifacts in English and Farsi. This project is informed by our own personal interest in understanding the revolution, and what it meant to live through it.

Lost Story: From the North to Ottawa’s Southway Inn

Why does a hotel in Ottawa’s south end fly the flag of Nunavut?

The answer to this question is a story of family, home, and community. It is also a story of Canada’s North and South. After opening in 1958 close to the city’s airport, the Southway Inn became a cherished place for people travelling to and from the Arctic, especially the Baffin Island region. More than just a place to stay, the Southway also served as a wayfinder for new arrivals trying to make sense of Ottawa’s urban geography, as Inuit men, women, and children travelled for work, school, and healthcare. A ‘home away from home,’ the Southway served as a distinctive space that linked families and communities together. Today, Ottawa has the largest urban Inuit population south of the Arctic, including many whose first relationship to the city began with a stay at the Southway Inn. This project involves the installation of an original piece of commemorative artwork, created by the Canadian Inuk sculptor,. That piece in now visible at the former Southway Inn (now the Waterford Retirement Residence) following its unveiling on 07 September 2017.�� , an Inuk filmmaker who was once a visitor to the Southway Inn himself, directed a documentary film about both this “lost story” and also Couzyn’s journey to create a commemoration of it. To see the film and read more about this project, please visit the .

We will be rolling out a new story every two months, offering locals and visitors diverse and exciting histories of our city. Featuring interviews, video clips, and photographs, CapitalHistory.ca will engage you with the history of Ottawa in a way you have never experienced it before. Watch out for our logo: it signals that this site has a story to tell!

– is a CCPH project in association with the ,��, and��.