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
A desk in front of a window. It’s sunset. The window looks out onto mountains. On the desk there are books, notebooks, postcards and a pencil case.
Photo Credit: Eleonora Anedda
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
Illustration of a ghost (the oral historian) holding a microphone next to a person sitting down.
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
Mt. Fuji in distance
(Photo: Sach Takayasu)
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
A black earbud case sits on a smartphone.
Photo by SCREEN POST on Unsplash
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 MoreIn Search of Shared Experience
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.
Read MoreWho Are You?: Thoughts on Identity and Language
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.
Read MoreReview: “Food: From Source to Salespoint” a British Library Oral History Collection
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.
Read MoreCommunity Story-Catching in Post-Conflict El Salvador
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 MoreArt and Art-making: The Meticulous Presence of the Encounter
In this post, current OHMA student Nora Waters explores the inherent creative practice of the encounter, whether it be lithography or an interview, after discovering that she has lived much of her life as a maker without a medium.
Read MoreOral History in the 'Post-Fact' Era: Exploring ‘Voices of Crown Heights’ (Part II)
This article is the second in a three-part series examining the Brooklyn Historical Society’s ongoing oral history project “Voices of Crown Heights.” In this piece, current OHMA student Rachel Unkovic (2016) focuses on how oral history can illuminate (rather than obfuscate) historical narrative even in times of confusion and conflicting ideas.
Read MoreZoetrope City: Moment, Motion, and Memory
Earlier this fall, OHMA students Emma Courtland (2016) and Robin Miniter (2016) met in a third story apartment in Hamilton Heights to “narrate their photos.” Using a modification of the methods used by artist and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani to put walking tours, photography, and memory in conversation about the experience of gentrification in Prospect Heights, Courtland and Miniter planned to use photography and oral history to explore their changing relationships to the city. They then visited the places depicted in their photos. This is the story of one of those photos.
Read MoreJun. 19-30: Memory, Visuality, and Mobility Oral History Summer Seminar in Florence
Applications are now open for a new two-week long intensive seminar exploring oral history, memory, visuality, and the body. The course is co-sponsored by the European Research Council Project Bodies Across Borders: Oral and Visual Memory in Europe and Beyond (BABE) and the Columbia University Oral History Master of Arts Program (OHMA), and hosted by the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute, Florence.