The awarding of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature to Belarusian journalist and oral historian Svetlana Alexievich is gratifying for, among other things, its recognition of non-fiction as an integral and dynamic sibling to literature. But the Literature Nobel has gone to non-literary genres before. For example, it was given to the Classical Greek and Latin scholar Mommsen in 1902 (the second year of the Prize), peace-activist and philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1950 and, rather more unfortunately, to imperialist historian and biographer Winston Churchill in 1953. But these remain exceptions. Even within literature, the committee has had to soothe the competing claims of various genres — poetry, the novel, drama and the short story. For full story click here.
Category: Uncategorized
West Australian Aboriginal Oral Histories
The Indigenous Community Stories (ICS) project has been running since 2008 and is on track to complete 83 films by April next year. But program manager Michelle Broun said they were aiming to do 100 stories altogether — they just need a final injection of funds to do it. For full story click here.
Oral History Review
The goal of this blog is to further promote the Oral History Review’s mission of advancing the understanding of oral history among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. In conjunction with the OHR, we provide digital space to those interested in presenting ideas, thoughts, conclusions, or arguments on the topic of oral history, and we promote these ideas through social media. While we primarily focus this effort on giving OHR authors additional room to discuss their scholarship, we also use our platform to promote the national Oral History Association’s efforts, and we encourage oral history-focused submissions from anyone anywhere. For more information including many links to articles, click here.
Interview with audio expert
This week, we’re pushing the boundaries a bit to bring you an interview with Dana Gerber-Margie, who publishes The Audio Signal, a “weekly digest about audio.” Troy and I are huge fans of the newsletter, as are Pop Up Archive and even the Wall Street Journal. The interview covers some of the nuts and bolts of sorting through massive amounts of audio, as well as Gerber-Margie’s philosophy on the importance of audio. If you’d like to discuss an innovative project you’re working on, consider submitting it for publication on this blog. For full story click here.
his week, we’re pushing the boundaries a bit to bring you an interview with Dana Gerber-Margie, who publishes The Audio Signal, a “weekly digest about audio.” Troy and I are huge fans of the newsletter, as are Pop Up Archive and even the Wall Street Journal. The interview covers some of the nuts and bolts of sorting through massive amounts of audio, as well as Gerber-Margie’s philosophy on the importance of audio. If you’d like to discuss an innovative project you’re working on, consider submitting it for publication on this blog. – See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2015/10/audio-signal-interview/#sthash.B2Q8eOBy.dpuf
Top Twitter debates at OHA (in USA) meeting
Some of you open a can of soup and tweet about it, others of us would never know about your tweet since we don’t use Twitter. Others at this year’s Oral History Association annual meeting put their phones away for a second to do what they do best: listen. Although the conversation continued in between sessions and into the evenings in quips of 140 characters, we worried that it was buried underneath the huge volume of tweets and retweets. Whether polite or Luddite, many oral historians missed debates to which they contribute offline with thought and authority. Here’s your chance to catch up and weigh in on the top five Tampa Twitter debates when you click here.
ome of you open a can of soup and tweet about it, others of us would never know about your tweet since we don’t use Twitter. Others at this year’s Oral History Association annual meeting put their phones away for a second to do what they do best: listen. Although the conversation continued in between sessions and into the evenings in quips of 140 characters, we worried that it was buried underneath the huge volume of tweets and retweets. Whether polite or Luddite, many oral historians missed debates to which they contribute offline with thought and authority. Here’s your chance to catch up and weigh in on the top five Tampa Twitter debates. – See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2015/10/tampa-twitter-oha2015/#sthash.55IpdqNc.dpuf
ome of you open a can of soup and tweet about it, others of us would never know about your tweet since we don’t use Twitter. Others at this year’s Oral History Association annual meeting put their phones away for a second to do what they do best: listen. Although the conversation continued in between sessions and into the evenings in quips of 140 characters, we worried that it was buried underneath the huge volume of tweets and retweets. Whether polite or Luddite, many oral historians missed debates to which they contribute offline with thought and authority. Here’s your chance to catch up and weigh in on the top five Tampa Twitter debates. – See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2015/10/tampa-twitter-oha2015/#sthash.55IpdqNc.dpuf
Aboriginal people correct the record
Barkindji woman Elizabeth Bennett's birth certificate is battered and broken but she keeps it in a plastic sleeve to try to prevent further damage. She says the document has a mistake and some of the official records of her family don't match the oral history handed down over generations. For full story click here.
The Coal Face
Released earlier this year, Tom Doig's The Coal Face describes the day last year that fire took hold in Victoria's Hazelwood coal mine and burned for one-and-a-half months. This month the book was the joint winner of the inaugural Oral History Victoria Education Innovation Award. The judges described Doig's work as an “outstanding fusion of oral history, journalism and political activism”. For full story click here.
Remembering the Man
Seemingly, new Australian films based on Timothy Conigrave’s 1995 memoir Holding the Man are like buses: you can wait ages for one, then two come along (almost) at once. For full story click here.
Women who rock
What do Pussy Galore’s Julie Cafritz and No Wave rocker Lydia Lunch have in common with feminist and Smith College alumna Gloria Steinem? Their oral histories can now all be found in Smith College’s Sophia Smith Collection, an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, archives, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women’s history. For full story click here.
Colorado’s floods
September 2015 marked the second anniversary of the floods that ravaged Colorado’s Front Range. In an interview about the devastation, Jamestown Mayor Tara Schoedinger recalled a dramatic moment following days of rain: “My husband … ran outside and said, ‘There goes the gulch.’ … He came back in less than a minute later, and he said, ‘Joey’s house collapsed, and he’s in it. Call 9-1-1.’”
In Queensland we have had very similar experiences and we can learn from them, read the full story here.