In this blogpost, inspired by Carlin Zia’s March 5th OHMA presentation on her book “Uncertain Journeys,” Lisa R. Cohen reflects on the fluid nature of shared memories in different spaces - traveling back and forth between spoken, written, physical and even, increasingly, the virtual world.
Read MoreHug Your Plant! and Other Self-Care Tips for Oral Historians in Lockdown
Ted Kerr’s wise words inspired OHMA student Eleonora Anedda to reflect on the responsibilities of oral historians in times of crisis. Not so much on their duty towards others, but their obligations towards themselves. This piece will examine much needed self care habits that can be incorporated in our lockdown routines.
Read MoreUncovering Thyself: Identity Politics & Oral History
In this blog post, current OHMA student Marina Labarthe del Solar shares a conversation with Theodore Kerr about the importance of being transparent about your identity and positionality with the communities you work with. Marina writes about identity politics and how knowing where you stand with respect to power is an essential skill for oral historians.
Read MoreDialogue with Institutionalized Residents: Examples and Advice
How do you engage in a dialogue with a narrator who lives permanently in an institution? Let me tell you a story.
Read MoreAI: An opportunity to reimagine an old-world anew
In this piece, Francine D. Spang-Willis reimagines a relationship with oral history and technology to create artificial intelligence that is more representative of and responsive to maintaining and perpetuating Indigenous language, knowledge, and culture. The piece is inspired by Stephanie Dinkins' Oral History as Told by AI presentation given on April 2, 2020.
Read MoreWhat can journalists learn from Oral History when covering the Covid-19 pandemic?
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.
Read MoreIn Search of Shared Experience
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.
Read MoreWho Are You?: Thoughts on Identity and Language
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.
Read MoreReview: “Food: From Source to Salespoint” a British Library Oral History Collection
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.
Read MoreCommunity Story-Catching in Post-Conflict El Salvador
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 MoreReport-back: China International Oral History Week
What are oral historians in China up to? OHMA Director Amy Starecheski shares her impressions from a recent trip to Beijing.
Read More“There’s no sound and it’s ok” - the unforeseen challenges of an “Oracle Circle” facilitation
Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs listens for a living: the mission of her work is to “create infinite ways to facilitate listening.” The renowned black feminist scholar and poet shared with us how she approaches listening to herself/body/spirit, to artistic inspiration and to others during her November 7th “"Necessary as Water": Queer Black Ceremony and the Depth of Listening” workshop. She also facilitated a listening “Oracle Circle” for audience members. Gallant Zhuangli, a Barnard College senior and oral history enthusiast, was inspired to lead an “Oracle Circle” of her own in an effort to better understand and reflect on Dr. Gumbs’ innovative listening practices.
Read More“Creating a Dark Space”: Listening to and Prioritizing Intuition
What do a 4 am wake-up time, the base of a pyramid, and the origin of a mathematical graph have in common? In Liu Chen’s post on the workshop led by Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, they reflect on priorities in oral history practices, intuition, and the value of darkness.
Read MoreJeremy Bentham’s Tape Recorder: Being As Useful As Possible In Oral History
Hi, I’m Zack Daniel Schiavetta, of the 2020 OHMA cohort, and for this blog post I’m writing about applying utilitarian ethics, which seeks to provide the maximum good for the greatest number of people, to oral history to make the field accessible to as many people as possible.
Read MoreOral History as Ceremony and Ceremony as Oral History
On October 24, Dr. Kahente Horn-Miller, of the Mohawk Nation, gave a powerful sharing about her ancestors, culture, and connection to the earth through monologue, song, and dance during the presentation of Standing with Sky Woman: A conversation on cultural fluency. In this post, current OHMA student, Francine D. Spang-Willis, considers the method of transferring Indigenous knowledge to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples through storytelling as an oral history method. She also explores oral history as ceremony and ceremony as oral history.
Read MoreWho are our ancestors? Lessons from Animism
Oral history has been a practice in academic spaces for a short time, but has existed in indigenous cultures and oral traditions for many, many years. Dr. Alexis Gumbs @alexispauline explores in she work topics such as: elders, listening, embodiment and even learning from marine mammals. Noor Alzamami takes a deeper look at the connections between animism and oral history in this post after reflecting on Dr. Alexis Gumbs presentation.
Read MoreEarning the Privilege to Listen
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.
Read MoreIntersections Between a Clinical Encounter and an Oral History Interview: Skilled Listening and Narrative Understanding
During the OHMA Workshop , “Say It Forward: Art and Social Justice,” Lauren Taylor LCSW discussed her chapter, “Resilience: Elders in East Harlem,” reflecting on how her experience as a psychiatric social worker has both helped and hindered her practice as an oral historian. In this post, Caroline Offit explores the ways these roles interact: How do we think carefully about our narrator’s needs while being conscious of our own position and influence on an interview, as well as potentially evaluative or diagnostic language? How do we remain sensitive to the possible meanings that a narrator attaches to their words and how we personally interpret their words?
Read MoreA Race Stenographer: On Being The Unwilling Representative
In this piece Alissa Funderburk discusses a challenge faced by writers of color as proposed by author and radio journalist Daniel Alarcón in his March 8th talk How to Listen, part of the OHMA workshop series, Oral History and the Arts.
Read MoreThe Performance of the Oral History Interview
On April 5th, Nicki Pombier Berger and Liza Zapol delighted us with an interactive, participatory workshop on creativity and the interview. In this blog post, Shira Hudson reflects on the relationship between the interviewer, narrator, and audience and how oral history can be viewed as performative.
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