Review: “Food: From Source to Salespoint” a British Library Oral History Collection

May 7, 2020 Admin

Three dishes of hand-made pasta. The plate on the right is a simple spaghetti al sugo, the one on the bottom is a creamy pappardelle ai funghi porcini, and lastly the one on top is a spaghetti alla bottarga. This meal was enjoyed in the Fall of 2019… — Three dishes of hand-made pasta. The plate on the right is a simple spaghetti al sugo, the one on the bottom is a creamy pappardelle ai funghi porcini, and lastly the one on top is a spaghetti alla bottarga. This meal was enjoyed in the Fall of 2019 in Los Angeles at Pasta Sisters.
*Photo Credits: Annie Yan*

In this post, OHMA student Eleonora Anedda (2019 -2020 cohort) will give you a taste of the vast British Library Archive by exploring their oral history collection on food, the British kitchen scene, and its radical changes over the course of the last century. She wishes to apologiseapologizees in advance if this post makes you hungry.

Community Story-Catching in Post-Conflict El Salvador

January 31, 2020 Admin

Photograph of a workshop which shows Molly Todd and Barbara Mergen talking with a group of attendees who all look to be Salvadoran. The attendees are seated in chairs in the middle of a classroom looking at large printed photographs with Barbara and… — Photograph of a workshop which shows Molly Todd and Barbara Mergen talking with a group of attendees who all look to be Salvadoran. The attendees are seated in chairs in the middle of a classroom looking at large printed photographs with Barbara and Molly standing behind and leaning in to discuss the exercise.

What would it look like if we valued group narratives over individual ones? In this post Jacey Anderson (graduate student of History at Montana State University) describes the methods of collaborative, multi-generational workshops she co-facilitated in El Salvador in January 2019. Using their long-standing relationships with the community of Arcatao, Dr. Molly Todd (professor of history at Montana State University), Barbara Mergen Alvarado (bilingual and multicultural educator), and Jacey explore how to use the lessons they learned from the people of Arcatao to design highly participatory historic memory workshops.