Sam Robson is a freelance oral historian and writer based in New York City. For his thesis in Columbia University’s oral history master’s program, Sam interviewed people with dementia and their family members. He used these interviews, as well as his experience with his father’s memory loss, as the basis for a collection of short stories and plays titled The Banishment of Carrots. Sam earned his BA at Carleton College, where he wrote an undergraduate thesis based on interviews with Afro-Nicaraguan Contra War veterans. Recently, Sam contributed to Frances Negrón-Muntaner’s The Latino Media Gap: A Report on the State of Latinos in U.S. Media, available here.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
6-8 PM
The Faculty House at Columbia University (Seminar Room One)
Read Kate Brenner's reflection on this talk
and watch the workshop on YouTube.
This oral history workshop features a staged reading of Sam Robson’s one-act play Timothy and Mary. The play follows two New Yorkers as they review their intersecting lives in the company of an enigmatic third party. It is based on the oral histories of two people Sam interviewed for his Columbia master’s thesis, which comprises a series of short pieces that explore dementia using oral history. After the reading, Sam will discuss the process of creating the play and the ethics and dynamics of interviewing people with dementia.
Commentator: Marsha Hurst, Columbia Program in Narrative Medicine
SPONSORS: This talk is part of the “Paul F. Lazarsfeld Lecture Series,” co-sponsored by the Columbia Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR), the Oral History Master of Arts Program (OHMA), and the University Seminar on Narrative, Health and Social Justice. 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