In this post, OHMA student Yameng Xia (2017) considers Robert Sember’s work in public health and his work as an artist based on his work and an interview she conducted. Robert Sember is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at the New School’s Eugene Lang College, and a member of the international sound-art collective, Ultra-red.
Read MoreReview: “The B-Side: ‘Negro Folklore From Texas State Prisons’ A Record Album Interpretation"
In this post, part-time OHMA student Bud Kliment reviews “The B-Side: ‘Negro Folklore in Texas Prisons’ A Record Album Interpretation’” a performance piece of musical theater and oral history based on the 1965 LP “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons.”
Read MoreFind Your People: Dispatch about the 2017 Oral History Association Conference
In this post OHMA alum Fanny Julissa García (2016) discusses her experience at the recent 2017 Oral History Association Conference in comparison to her first visit to the conference in 2016, and her collaboration on a panel about making oral history into art.
Read MoreBelonging: How a Young Man Finds his Place in Examining Fragmented Space
In this post OHMA student Alissa Funderburk (2017-2018) introduces the second Future Voices Fellow, Desmond Austin Miller. Alissa recently conducted a one-on-one interview with Desmond to learn more about her classmate’s life, education, work, and research interests.
Read MoreKnowing Your Place: Proving a Woman Belongs Everywhere She Can Make a Difference
In this post OHMA student Alissa Funderburk (2017-2018) introduces Future Voices Fellow, Lynn Lewis. Alissa recently sat down for a one-on-one interview at Lynn’s home. Below she uses Lynn’s life story and inspirations to understand her work and academic interests.
Read MoreWhat We Talk About When We Talk About History
In this post, Rachel Unkovic, member of the 2016 cohort, talks about why oral historians have a unique role to play in amplifying and signal boosting marginalized voices to enable "history" and communal memory to be appropriately critiqued.
Read MoreThe Utopia of Europe
Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability fellow Lura Limani reflects on what stories of migrants, as collected by Professor Luisa Passerini’s Bodies Across Borders in Europe project, can teach us about European identity.
Read MoreRecognition of Multi-Truth in an era of Post-Truth
In this post, OHMA student Tomoko Kubota (2017) explores how we can make meaning of oral history in an era of Post-Truth. This article is the first in a three-part series exploring Dr. Luisa Passerini’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Interviewing Artists: Intersubjectivity and Visuality.”
Read MoreThe Identity of an Oral Historian
In this post, current OHMA student Shira Hudson reflects on how Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz’s lecture inspired her to consider what it means to identify as an oral historian.
Read MoreFirst, Take Care of Yourself Thoughts on Storytelling and Wellness
In this post, Robin Weinberg, member of the 2016 cohort, talks about how we, as story collectors, oral historians and engaged listeners, need to make sure we have an toolbox of techniques to take care of ourselves.
Read MoreI Don’t Need to Be the Expert of All Those Other Things
In this post OHMA student Elly Kalfus (2017-2018) discusses how Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz’s approach to designing and facilitating oral history storytelling events led her to a deeper understanding of the value of collaboration and humility.
Read MoreNyssa Chow wins the 2017 Jeffrey H. Brodsky Oral History Award
In November of 2015, Jeffrey H. Brodsky, OHMA alum, announced a generous annual cash prize of $3,000 for an outstanding thesis. The criteria for receiving the award is that the thesis must “make an important contribution to knowledge and exemplify the rigor, creativity and ethical integrity we teach our students.”
We are proud to announce the winner: Nyssa Chow, and Ellen Coon, the runner up. We invite you to consider the resonances between these two theses: in the recreation of the literal voices and memories of powerful women who tend to the living and the dying and all the attendant rituals in between, and who translate the stories that enliven the next generation.
Read MoreOHMA Welcomes New Faculty and Teaching Fellow for 2017-18 School Year!
We are excited to welcome new faculty member Whitney Dow and teaching fellow Nyssa Chow to OHMA for the coming school year.
Read MoreAnnouncing OHMA's 2017-2018 Workshop Series
Oral history is an art. The practice of oral history is creative -- in interviews we make narratives together with our interviewees, imagining worlds, telling stories, creating characters. Oral history can also be used to document the arts, to tell the stories of painters and dancers and actors and writers and the worlds they live in. And the arts are a powerful means to amplify and interpret oral histories, transforming them into literary narratives, building theater or music or dance performances from them, using them to create documentaries. This year, we will explore all of these many intersections of oral history and the arts, asking what unique contributions an oral history approach can make to artistic practice, and how oral history can help us to think about art and its role in the world.
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Congratulations to recent OHMA graduate Fanny García!
Recent OHMA graduate Fanny Julissa García (2016) recently accepted a position at the New-York Historical Society.
Read MoreFieldwork and Internship Partnerships Available at OHMA
The Columbia University Oral History Master of Arts Program has two exciting opportunities available this year to work with the program's incoming students -- the Fieldwork Partners and Internship Programs.
Read MoreTime & Memory in Exhibit and Installation Work: A Conundrum
In this article, Monica Liuting (2016) writes about her installation for the Inside Voices: An Oral History Exhibition in April 2017. Here we see her struggle with the question about how to represent place, memory, and the passage of time in her exhibit.
Read MoreDecolonizing Cultural Spaces To Tell Refugee Stories
In this article, Fanny García (2016) reflects on her process as she worked to create an oral history exhibit for Inside Voices: An Oral History Exhibition in April 2017. She writes that she believes strongly in the decolonization of cultural spaces and in the creation of exhibits and installations that mobilize people to action.
Read MoreInside Voices: An Oral History Exhibition in Photos
On Thursday, April 27, 2017, the Oral History Master of Arts program at Columbia University hosted it's annual oral history exhibition. Co-curated by OHMA's Co-Director Amy Starecheski and current graduate student Emma Courtland, Inside Voices featured the work of twelve students from the 2016 cohort.
Read MoreOn the Edge of My Seat: Planning an Interactive Oral History Exhibit
In this post, OHMA student Robin Weinberg (2016) reflects on her experience creating Four Chairs for the recent Inside Voices exhibition.
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