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
"lampedusa" (CC BY 2.0) by noborder network.
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
Photo credit: Ali Lapetina
Shot onsite during 2017 Burnside Farm artist residency in Detroit, Michigan (with permission/gratitude to Kate Daughdrill, Burnside Farm founder).
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
A photograph from Intersecting Histories: The Story of Her Skin
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!
Whitney Dow (left) and Nyssa Chow (right)
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.
Read MoreOHMA Student & Alumni News: Summer 2017
We 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 MoreFrom Individual Experience to Political Expression: A Discussion of How Specific Experiences Are Presented in Movements
In 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 MoreHonoring Experience through Oral History: Reflections on Teaching a High School Walmart Employee
Image courtesy of Wikimedia
In 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 MoreDecolonizing the Academy through Collaboration
From the American Museum of Natural History, here is a photo of Tsukwani and George Hunt, two members of the clan who were in communication with anthropologist Franz Boas during his ethnographic study of the Kwakwaka’wakw. Courtesy of: http://www.firstnations.eu/fisheries/kwakwakawakw-kwakiutl.htm.
In 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 MoreReconsidering the Narrative: Intersectional Identities and Community Organizing
In 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.”
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