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A an old-fashioned camera lies on top of a stack of books and papers, with a typewriter in the background. (Credit: Wallace Chuck)
To capture the complexity of the coronavirus pandemic, and to honour the voices of the communities most impacted, journalists can draw upon some of the techniques practiced by oral history.
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Two young men, wearing bright orange coveralls and rubber boots, pause near each other while laboring in a lush field, lined by tropical vegetation.
How can we invite people to dig into their memories and offer us their stories? In this blog post, Amanda Blewitt, a doctoral student in International Education, reflects on how sharing experiences with participants can evoke the past while connecting us in the present. This reflection was inspired by Laura Mitchison’s conversation with OHMA on April 9, 2020.
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The photo has a simple grey background. There is a black and white string threaded between the top corners. A small back clothespin is clipped on the middle of the string; hanging from the clothespin is a white piece of paper. Printed on the paper are the words: “I am…”
Image from: https://circlein.com/how-to-rediscover-your-identity/
How do you describe who you are? What words do you choose? What meanings do your choices carry with them? Current OHMA student Lily Doron ponders these questions in this essay on identity, language, and how we see ourselves. It is inspired by Carlin Zia’s OHMA workshop presentation, Uncertain Journeys.
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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.
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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.
Read MoreWhat are oral historians in China up to? OHMA Director Amy Starecheski shares her impressions from a recent trip to Beijing.
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Source: https://www.success.com/how-to-speak-well-and-listen-better/
An illustration of two silhouettes, facing opposite directions, each with their own dialogue bubble. One silhouette is surrounded by a green background and the other is surrounded by a red background.
On October 3, OHMA alumna Emma Courtland presented her thesis, Finding Fathers: A Cautionary Tale for Oral Historians, including audio that highlighted the ways in which her personal journey paralleled those of her narrators. In this post, current OHMA student, Jennie Morrison, considers what it means for oral historians to share pieces of themselves with their narrators, as well as how that shapes the listening process.
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Image courtesy of pixabay.com
In this post, Chinonye Alma Otuonye explores the dialogic space as a mechanism towards a human understanding of the self and history. She reflects on the ways John Kuo Wei Tchen—NYU professor, historian, and curator—decolonizes both space and history within and through his work.
This article is the first in a three-part series exploring Tchen’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Below the Grid.”
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We are excited to announce that there continue to be multiple opportunities to work with Columbia's Oral History MA program students this year! First, we are seeking organizations or projects with which students can partner to conduct three interviews as part of their fall fieldwork course.
Second, OHMA students are able to undertake internships for credit.
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