On Thursday, May 2 we will be kicking off our 5th Anniversary celebration with three free, public, interactive lunchtime oral history workshops taught by OHMA alums and students: Oral History and Psychotherapy, Designing Oral History Projects, and Stories Beyond Digital Tools. Register now to reserve your spot! Lunch will be provided, and all workshops will take place in Buell Hall from 12:15-1:45.
Workshop #1: Convergences and Divergences of Oral History and Psychotherapy
Lauren Taylor
This workshop will examine the convergences and divergences of oral history and psychotherapy. Public and private themes will be explored in a sociocultural context, with a focus on trauma interviewing. Participants will learn how narrative may be developed to therapeutic effect in a range of clinical and non-clinical settings. The workshop will include participant role plays and analysis of audio and video interviews.
Part one, Contrasts and Similarities, will compare the approaches and interviewing techniques of both the oral historian and the psychotherapist, will an emphasis on understanding intersubjectivity and appropriate use of self-disclosure. Part two, Understanding Trauma, will provide an understanding of the bio-psycho-social effects of trauma, and the development of skills for coping with vicarious traumatization during the interview process. Register to reserve your spot!
Lauren Taylor, M.A., M.S., L.C.S.W., oral historian and psychiatric social worker, is an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. As an oral historian, Ms. Taylor has conducted dozens of life history interviews with older adults, both in the United States and abroad, and is studying the subjective experience of aging through the medium of narrative in a cross-cultural context. Ms. Taylor has lectured and published on the therapeutic use of oral history and life review for an aging population, and on the integration of oral history and social work education, both in the US, in France, and in Canada.
Workshop #2: Designing Projects: What is the message, why is it important and who got it?
Marie Scatena
This workshop goes through the steps of planning an oral history project with attention to backward design. We’ll explore how the original intention of the collecting effort is reflected in tangible and intangible outcomes by:
Envisioning connections between potential audiences or publics and narrators to create a project mission statement or guiding question
Identifying points in the process where ‘translation’, or decisions about refashioning research into what is often called interpretation, takes place
Work-shopping questions and scenarios to achieve different outcomes
Brainstorming evaluations which might be built into the process
Register to reserve your spot!
Marie Scatena experienced OHMA as a student in the first graduating class, and from 2010 to 2012 she taught OHMA’s Oral History Workshop and Fieldwork, Production, Documentation and Archiving courses. Marie conducted her thesis research at the MoMA, and drew on her background in museum education to help OHMA students realize collaborative projects for public presentation and creative theses. In recent years Marie contributed to oral history projects such as Columbia Teacher’s College ART CART Project with fellows interviewing aging visual artists for an exhibition and website and The National Public Housing Museum’s collection efforts with youth. Today Marie is an independent researcher, developer and consultant based in Chicago. She works with institutions, organizations and communities to collect and interpret stories.
Workshop #3: Stories Beyond Digital Tools
Sewon Christina Chung
Explore the world of interactive web technology, and gain hands-on experience utilizing new storytelling platforms and social media outlets for oral history.
New digital tools can help us craft compelling audiovisual and interactive stories. This workshop is designed to provide exposure to new trends in digital storytelling, all the while investigating the potential traps of digital tools. We will work together to develop thoughtful approaches to using new technologies, taking the stories beyond the tools. Chung will highlight Oral History-related websites with interactive functions, beginning a conversation about the potentials of new media tools and will go over main tools and web platforms, giving an explanation of its functionality and limitations. Participants should bring their laptops. At the close of the workshop, the group will spend 30 minutes building a web story on Zeega. We will close with a discussion about more thoughtful ways to approach new technologies and avoid the traps of believing that tools are more than just tools. Register to reserve your spot!
Sewon Christina Chung received her B.A. in Sociology and Literary & Cultural Studies from the College of William and Mary in 2009. During her studies, she produced a documentary film about the U.S.‐Mexico border to facilitate discussion concerning race, identity, and community in Williamsburg, Virginia. After graduation, Sewon completed a multimedia blog series for MIT's CoLab Radio in Kunming, China. Her work focused on the daily experience of urban development in one of China's quickly changing border region. At OHMA, she is combining her interests in visible and invisible borders as well as new media as a medium and method for oral history in research about Central Park North.