IOHA 2006 Internation Conference

The 14th International Oral History Conference will be preceded by Master Classes with leading international oral historians. The Master Classes will provide opportunities for oral historians from around the world to enhance their skills in aspects of oral history theory and practice, and to learn from internationally recognised scholars.

Date: Tuesday, 11 July 2006

Venue: State Library of NSW, Macquarie Street, Sydney.

Duration: each Master Class lasts three hours with an additional half hour for a coffee/tea break.

9am-12.30 pm

Master Class 1:
Alessandro Portelli Master Class 2:
Linda Shopes

1.30pm - 5pm

Master Class 3:
Alistair Thomson Master Class 4:
Dean Rehberger and Michael Fegan.

For descriptions of the contents of the Master Classes see below.

Language: English only (with regrets)

Cost:
AU $45 each class for IOHA and OHAA members
AU $55 each class for non-members

Registration: Available on-line with conference registration.

Spaces are limited. Register early for the Master Classes.

Alessandro Portelli: The creative aspects of memory.

(Master Class 1: Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 9am to 12.30pm)

Introduction:

The selection and narrative construction of memory narratives are always acts of interpretation, rather than just representation or reproduction. In fact, we ought to talk of 'remembering' as a verb, rather than 'memory' as a name because 'memory' suggests a static depository of data rather than an always ongoing mental, intellectual and emotional work. From this point of view, the factual reliability of memories is only one aspect of the work of oral history. 'False' or 'wrong' memories, especially when socially shared, may turn out to be as relevant for the interpretation of the meaning of historical events as the more usual referentially accurate ones that we find in our work.

Content:

Drawing especially on examples from his own work, Alessandro Portelli will invite participants to think about the creative aspects of memory, and the ways in which current scholarship and practice is engaging with these creative aspects. During the Master Class, participants will:

discuss examples of imaginative memory narrative
be able to present and discuss cases from their own experience.

Presenter:

Alessandro Portelli teaches American Literature at the University of Rome La Sapienza and is the author of a number of essays and books on oral cultures and oral history. His work published in English includes The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories, Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, SUNY Press, 1991); The Text and the Voice, Speaking, Writing, and Democracy in American Literature (Columbia U.P., 1994); and The Battle of Valle Giulia, Oral History and the Art of Dialogue (Wisconsin U.P., 1997). His most recent book, The Order Has Been Carried Out (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), an oral history of a Nazi war crime in the context of the history of Rome, received the Viareggio Book Prize in 2004 and one of two Oral History Association book prizes in 2005.

Linda Shopes: Preparing oral history interviews for publication.

(Master Class 2: Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 9am to 12.30pm)

Introduction:

Although oral history interviews are often quite compelling and persuasive, they do not speak for themselves. If interviews are to form the basis of a book or other publication, they need to be edited, contextualized, and interpreted. And a distinction needs to be made at the outset: interview based publications are different from edited transcripts, which nonetheless are sometimes referred to as publications. Transcripts are essentially verbatim renderings in written form - albeit sometimes edited lightly for readability - of what has been said orally; they are primary sources. Publications are polished productions, even as they are firmly grounded in a body of oral history interviews. They are secondary sources that represent an author/editor's controlling intelligence, although the narrator's voice (or narrators' voices) may dominate the text.

Content:

The Master Class will look at some of the issues and approaches involved in editing, contextualising, and interpreting oral history interviews in preparation for publication in print. Participants will:

compare, analyse, and discuss the differences between verbatim transcripts and edited versions of the same interview,
examine different ways of presenting and contextualising an interview in publications, and
have the opportunity to practice editing an interview excerpt suitable for publication.

In preparation for the Master Class participants are advised to read the following:

Frisch, Michael 'Preparing interview transcripts for documentary publication: a line by line illustration of the editing process' in Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority, State University of New York, Albany, 1990.

Shopes, Linda. 'Making sense of oral history'. History Matters, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/

Participants are invited - but not required - to submit five to eight pages of a work in progress in advance of the workshop for consideration by workshop participants. Workshop examples will be selected from work submitted, as appropriate. Send material to lshopes@aol.com by June 1.

Presenter:

Linda Shopes works as a historian at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. She has worked on, consulted for, and written about oral history projects for more than twenty-five years. She currently co-edits Palgrave's Studies in Oral History series; has served as book review editor for the Oral History Review and co-consulting editor for oral history for the Journal of American History; and is co-editor of The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History. She is a past president of the Oral History Association (USA).

Alistair Thomson: Interpreting oral history interviews.

(Master Class 3: Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 1.30 to 5pm)

Introduction:

In recent years oral historians have made important contributions to literature about the interpretation of personal testimony. We have developed approaches to the use of memory as empirical data about the experience and meaning of past events, and we have acknowledged that memory is a subjective source shaped by the rich interplay between experience and identity, past and present, interviewee and interviewer, and the individual and society. Interpretation of oral history is never straightforward, but it can be exciting, illuminating and fun!

Content:

This Master Class will provide a practical exploration of the approaches and issues involved in interpreting oral history interviews. Drawing in particular on his own work, and using rich examples from interviews, Alistair Thomson will introduce two overlapping approaches:

narrative analysis of oral testimony (focusing on single interviews), and
thematic interpretation of oral history interviews (focusing on sets of interviews).

Along the way we will reflect on the nature of memory as an historical source, and upon the research relationship with interviewees and the opportunities and difficulties of negotiated interpretation.

Presenter:

Alistair Thomson is an historian who specialises in research and teaching using oral history and life history documents. His research over the last 20 years has included life history studies of migration, war and lifelong education. His publications include: Anzac Memories: Living With the Legend (1994), Through the Joy of Learning: Diary of a Thousand Adult Learners (1996), The Oral History Reader (1998, and 2006 forthcoming) and Ten Pound Poms, Australia's Invisible Migrants (2005). Alistair Thomson is Director of the University of Sussex Centre for Life History Research and co-editor of the British journal Oral History. He convenes the University of Sussex MA in Life History Research: Oral History and Life Story Documents, and supervises a group of PhD students working on a variety of life history research projects.

Dean Rehberger and Michael Fegan: Oral history in the digital world.

(Master Class 4: Tuesday, 11 July 2006, 1.30 to 5pm)

Introduction:

The field of digital audio seems to be in constant flux. With each passing year, new standards and methods emerge, each promising to be the best solution for the recording and storage of audio. The purpose of this Master Class is to make sense of the flux by exploring models of digital audio best practices developed for both international and local projects.

Content:

This Master Class is designed for both the beginner and seasoned professional, covering in simple and well-defined terms the best practices for the recording, processing, and analysis of digital audio. We will review the basics of digital audio and case studies of fieldwork to explore equipment selection, recording methods and other ways to ensure the capture of high-quality sound. It will also cover migration from analog to digital formats as well as using sound in the classroom and online.

The Master Class is intended to assist oral historians to implement several important aspects of digital audio technology in the field, studio, classroom, and online. The Master Class will cover a range of practices that include open-source and inexpensive solutions to higher-end applications and hardware. It will utilize a demonstration and discussion format.

Presenters:

Dean Rehberger is the Associate Director of MATRIX at Michigan State University (http://matrix.msu.edu). An expert in user interface design, Rehberger is a seasoned leader in implementing major humanities technology and digitization projects and a faculty advisor to the Human Computer Interaction Lab. Rehberger oversees the work on MATRIX's digital library and sound digitization projects and serves as project manager for the National Gallery of the Spoken Word and the Spoken Word project (http://www.ngsw.org/)

Michael Fegan is Chief Information Officer at MATRIX. Michael has developed some of Matrix's most successful online projects (http://www.historicalvoices.org) and is also one of the key architects of the MATRIX online digital repository (REPOS) and MediaMatrix - an online application for segmenting and annotating streaming media. He has done training and development across the United States, Africa, and Scotland on the digitization and delivery of online multimedia objects. He was also the key developer of Studs Terkel: Conversations with America (http://www.studsterkel.org/).