The Journey of a Story

October 14, 2019 Admin

*Photograph of a woman standing in the middle of a group of trees. The sun is shining directly on her, making a glowing circle around her. Her face is turned up to look towards the light.*

Telling someone else’s story is a lot of responsibility. After collecting narratives, oral historians often have to decide how to make that story accessible to the public. In Dr. Tim Raphael’s recent workshop talk, he called this process “activating the archive.” In this post current OHMA student, Lauren Instenes, will discuss the complexities of this process by taking you on the journey of a story she previously attempted to “activate.”

Sounds as Language, Language as Sounds

March 26, 2019 Admin

Image Description: In this photo, Nishani Frazier starts her presentation with music that is essential to the identities from her hometown. It captures one of the exciting moments from the workshop, in which Frazier enlightens her audience with capt… — Image Description: In this photo, Nishani Frazier starts her presentation with music that is essential to the identities from her hometown. It captures one of the exciting moments from the workshop, in which Frazier enlightens her audience with captivating music and sounds to make a point of her presentation.

“Listen to the world around you!” What do you hear? What sounds do you notice? Dr. Nishani Frazier’s presentation reminds us the importance of sounds in oral history. Music theory and philosophy teach us to value sounds that are linked with places, people, cultures, and languages.

Ode to the Transcriber, Unsung Hero of Oral History

November 3, 2016 Michael Falco

In this post, current OHMA BA/MA student Rozanne Gooding Silverwood (2015) reflects on the art of transcription and offers her perspective on how the NYPL Community Oral History Project might increase the enlistment of volunteer transcribers by educating prospective participants about the literary history and aesthetic value of rendering the spoken word to text.

Oral History as Poetry: Restoring a Visual Orality

September 23, 2016 Admin

Nyssa Chow (2015) is an OHMA student and Teaching Fellow in our Method, Theory, and Interpretation course this fall through Columbia’s Center for Teaching and Learning. Her work with OHMA Co-Director Mary Marshall Clark to transform oral history by teaching visual literacy recently received Columbia’s Faculty Provost Award. In this post, Nyssa reflects on ethnopoetric transcription through Della Pollock and Hudson Vaughan’s talk in our Oral History Workshop Series this spring and discusses her experiences in visually expressing her narrators’ orality in print.

To Revise is to Create: Reflections on Editing and Translation for OHMA and Voice of Witness

June 9, 2016 Admin

In this post, current OHMA student Pablo Baeza reflects on his internship with Voice of Witness, publishers of a human rights-focused oral history book series. Pablo discusses the ethics of editing interviews for publication and offers a comparison to the experience of compiling his thesis website, Neuva York es la Frontera.