Oct. 2: A Radical Archive of Be(long)ing

Thursday, October 2, 2014

6-8 PM

Knox Hall, 606 W 122nd St., Room 509

Read current OHMA students' reflections on this talk:
Liz Hibbard Strong
and Benji de la Piedra

In this workshop, experienced public health professional Tei Okamoto will present two collaborative projects exploring the intersections of oral history and public health. Each project presents a radical archive of feelings, queerness, alternative kinships and long-term effects of and responses to public health safety nets and messaging. The AIDS Epidemic and House Music: Twenty Years of Children of Color at Church, explores how the house music scene provided an alternative space of community and healing for queers of color in the midst of the devastation of the AIDS epidemic from 1990-2000. Love and Affection: Growing Up in a Life and Time of HIV, documents the life histories of those who have lost a parent or primary caregiver to AIDS.

Tei Okamoto has reframed decades of training and learned experience working with populations that go underserved or rarely invisible in our social service “safety nets” into work that seeks to understand the interconnections between health disparities and class, race, gender, and sexuality via oral histories and film. Tei attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and graduate school in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Human Sexuality. Tei is currently contemplating an A.A. degree in Mortuary Science and a Ph.D program in Medical Anthropology.

SPONSORS: This talk is part of the “Paul F. Lazarsfeld Lecture Series,” co-sponsored by the Columbia Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) and the Oral History Master of Arts Program (OHMA). Support from the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) is provided for programming that embodies late Professor Paul Lazarsfeld’s commitment to improving methodological approaches that address concerns of vital cultural and social significance.

INFORMATION: For more information, please email Amy Starecheski at aas39(at)columbia.edu

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

NO REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED