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 MoreWe are excited to welcome new faculty member Whitney Dow and teaching fellow Nyssa Chow to OHMA for the coming school year.
Read MoreOral 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.
Read MoreRecent OHMA graduate Fanny Julissa García (2016) recently accepted a position at the New-York Historical Society.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreIn 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 MoreIn 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 MoreOn 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 MoreIn this post, OHMA student Robin Weinberg (2016) reflects on her experience creating Four Chairs for the recent Inside Voices exhibition.
Read MoreWe are excited to offer a round of summer news updates from our Oral History MA program student and alumni community! From prestigious awards to new jobs and press coverage, OHMA affiliates are taking oral history to new heights.
Read MoreIn this post, current OHMA student Monica Liuting (2016) reflects how Terrell Frazier uses oral history interviews to frame personal experiences in political expressions. This article is the last in a four-part series exploring Terrell’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Becoming an Organizer: Narrative, Identity and Social Action.”
Read MoreIn this final post in our four-part series, Heather Michael talks about her experiences teaching high school students who were navigating their lives in school, while working for Walmart. She discusses Adam Reich’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “The Summer for Respect: Student Activists, Walmart Workers, and the Future of the American Labor Movement,” honing in on the parallels between the insight Reich gained through his project and the value of using oral history as a way to validate experiences.
Read MoreIn this post, OHMA student Dina M. Asfaha (2016) discusses how we can make meaning of and interrogate anthropology using oral history. This article is the final in a three-part series exploring Dr. Leslie Robertson’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Devalued Subjectivities: Disciplines, Voices and Publics.”
Read MoreIn this piece, Nialah Edari discusses how Terrell Frazier’s work contrasts the ways in which we contextualize sociology and oral history by looking at how he applies both approaches in his assessment of the participants within his research. This article is the last in a three-part series exploring Terrell’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Becoming an Organizer: Narrative, Identity and Social Action.”
Read MoreIn this post, Brian Sarfo explores how Terrell Frazier's work situates the importance of relationships and humanizing the organizer through sociology and oral history. This article is the first in a three-part series exploring Terrell Frazier’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Becoming an Organizer: Narrative, Identity and Social Action.”
Read MoreIn this post, OHMA student Steve Fuchs (2016) explores the role oral history plays in helping sociologists better understand social movements. This article is the first in a three-part series exploring Terrell Frazier’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Becoming an Organizer: Narrative, Identity and Social Action.”
Read MoreIn this post, current OHMA student Yutong Wang (2016) discusses her perspectives on being a historian and how politics influence historical revisionism. This article is the second in a two-part series exploring Dr. Leslie Robertson’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Devalued Subjectivities: Disciplines, Voices and Publics.”
Read MoreIn this post, OHMA student Elyse Blennerhassett (2016) discusses how Dr. Leslie Robertson’s community-generated and collaborative methodologies inform her own practice in working with communities who are politically marginalized and stigmatized in the criminal justice system. This article is the first in a two-part series exploring Dr. Robertson’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “Devalued Subjectivities: Disciplines, Voices and Publics.”
Read MoreIn this last post in our three-part series, OHMA student Sara Jacobs discusses Adam Reich’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “The Summer for Respect: Student Activists, Walmart Workers, and the Future of the American Labor Movement” and the echoes she heard in the stories told by her mother.
Read MoreIn this post, current OHMA student Xiaoyan Li (2016) reflects on how the difference between elite students and Walmart workers shapes the dialogue between them, and how the organizers observe this and put it into words. This article is the second in a three-part series exploring Adam Reich’s recent OHMA Workshop Series lecture, “The Summer for Respect: Student Activists, Walmart Workers, and the Future of the American Labor Movement.”
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