My Time Working with the Tenement Museum

May 4, 2018 Admin

“Perfect Strangers” by Vik Muniz. Muniz wanted to show normal people you see on the subway that you remember distinctly, but regard as a stranger. This image of a couple is said to be the first permanent LGBT public art in all of New York. It is loc… — “Perfect Strangers” by Vik Muniz. Muniz wanted to show normal people you see on the subway that you remember distinctly, but regard as a stranger. This image of a couple is said to be the first permanent LGBT public art in all of New York. It is located at 72nd Street Station.

In this post, Desmond Austin-Miller, a graduate of Columbia University’s Oral History MA Program describes lessons learned through his time interning at the Tenement Museum during the Fall of 2017 and Spring of 2018.

A Race Stenographer: On Being The Unwilling Representative

May 4, 2018 Admin

In this piece Alissa Funderburk discusses a challenge faced by writers of color as proposed by author and radio journalist Daniel Alarcón in his March 8th talk How to Listen, part of the OHMA workshop series, Oral History and the Arts.

The Performance of the Oral History Interview

May 1, 2018 Admin

On April 5th, Nicki Pombier Berger and Liza Zapol delighted us with an interactive, participatory workshop on creativity and the interview. In this blog post, Shira Hudson reflects on the relationship between the interviewer, narrator, and audience and how oral history can be viewed as performative.

Look before You Leap: Project Design, the Interview, and Collaboration

May 1, 2018 Admin

Simone Forti, Slant Board, 1961. Photo courtesy of artist. — *Simone Forti,* Slant Board, 1961. Photo courtesy of artist.

Current OHMA student Kyna Patel (cohort of 2017) reflects upon the challenges and collaborative nature of oral history highlighted by Sara Sinclair and Mary Marshall Clark in the Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project.

What Do We Mean By Listening?

April 23, 2018 Admin

In this post OHMA student elly kalfus (2017) interrogates Luis C. Sotelo’s efforts to get people to position themselves in another’s story through audio walks.

The Art of Ceding Our Narrators the Power to Change our Lives

April 23, 2018 Admin

Daniel Alarcon is a guide, leading us into rich, intimate places that remain in our memory long after he shares them. It isn’t only the beautifully written stories that he tells, or his truth that is to be found within them. It is his ability to listen to and to convey the humanity of the people in his stories that inspired my own connection to them

Have you fasted from words today?

April 19, 2018 Admin

Image Source: Unsplash / Jonathan Pielmayer — Image Source: Unsplash / Jonathan Pielmayer

In this post, current OHMA student Yiyi Zhang reflects on the power of listening through Luis Sotelo’s talk on Performing Listening in the Context of Memorial Audio Walks.

Luis C. Sotelo Castro is Canada Research Chair in Oral History Performance and Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at Concordia University, Montreal (Quebec, Canada). In his current creation-research, he investigates modes of listening in the context of oral history performance and, more broadly, in the context of performances of memory.

Feminism Through Time: Writing about Historical Movements using Oral History Interviews

April 18, 2018 Admin

**Photograph via The Hollywood Reporter**

In this post, OHMA student Samantha Lombard (2018) reflects on Jennifer Egan’s Workshop, Jennifer Egan: The Novelist As Oral Historian, in which she discussed, among other topics, the challenges of writing about feminism from a historical perspective using oral history interviews.

Why We Tell (and Record) the Story

March 22, 2018 Admin

Once on this Island, Circle in the Square Theater. Credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times.

In this blog post, Amanda Faye Lacson shares her thoughts after attending both Nyssa Chow's and Gerry Albarelli's classes on Oral History for writers during the January 20 One-Day Oral History Workshops at Columbia University.

Translating Silences, Embodying Language: A Reflection on Intergenerational Oral Storytelling

March 16, 2018 Admin

Kristin Chang is a second-year undergraduate student at Sarah Lawrence College, currently studying literature and Ethnic Studies. She is a Resist/Regenerate/Recycle fellow with the W.o.W. Project in Chinatown. Her debut poetry chapbook, "Past Lives, Future Bodies," is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in Oct. 2018.

A Pot of Soup

March 14, 2018 Admin

Robert Rauschenberg hunting and gathering in Captiva. Courtesy of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. — Robert Rauschenberg hunting and gathering in Captiva. *Courtesy of The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.*

In this post, OHMA student Holly Werner-Thomas (2017) considers the similarities and differences between the oral history biography and the traditional authored biography, and how Robert Rauschenberg's own spirit of collaboration is reflected in the Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project.

Alessandro Portelli and Barbara Dane: Records of resistance

March 13, 2018 Admin

In this post part-time OHMA student Bud Kliment examines the relationship of folk music to oral history through the intersecting careers of Alessandro Portelli and Barbara Dane, occasioned by the release of Dane’s retrospective Hot Jazz, Cool Blues and Hard-Hitting Songs on Smithsonian Folkways.

Don’t Say It! (Wisdoms): A Conversation with Nyssa Chow

March 13, 2018 Admin

Photo from Nyssa Chow’s Still.Life. 2017 Exhibition, by Elyse Blennerhassett

Current OHMA student Carlin Zia shares gems from a warm-up conversation with Nyssa Chow ahead of her public presentation, “Writing and Listening for the Intersubjective Encounter,” the second event in our spring Oral History & the Arts lineup.

Coming Home: Finding One's Self in Oral History

March 6, 2018 Admin

Nyssa Chow, alum and OHMA teaching fellow, presents on her latest work, Still.Life., an oral history project documenting the lives of the women in her family. She spoke on her experience in the U.S. as an immigrant of color and the different perceptions of skin tone here and in Trinidad.

How can collective memory documented with oral history be the raw material for artistic production?

February 23, 2018 Admin

In this post, OHMA student Yameng Xia (2017) considers Jennifer Egan’s work Manhattan Beach and the interviews Egan conducted for the book. Jennifer Egan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer and she came to Columbia University to give a public interview on how she used an oral history approach to get raw material for her new novel, Manhattan Beach.

The Sound of Frogs & The Smell of Nutmeg: A Journey into Memory

February 23, 2018 Admin

OHMA student Tomoko Kubota reflects on Nyssa Chow’s contribution to the Spring Workshop Series, "Writing and Listening for the Intersubjective Encounter."

From James Michener to Jennifer Egan: The Evolving Use of Oral History in Writing Fiction

February 18, 2018 Admin

In this post, OHMA student Filip Mazurczak compares the methods of research used by Jennifer Egan and James Michener in writing historical fiction.

Mahalia and Studs, Mr. Jones and Dr. King

February 1, 2018 Admin

In this post, part-time OHMA student Bud Kliment reviews Glorious Mahalia by Stacy Harrop and Peace Be Till, by multimedia composer Zachary James Watkins as performed by the Kronos Quartet in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Announcing the winners of this year's thesis research grant awards

January 6, 2018 Admin

Jean Rice of Picture the Homeless interviewed and photographed by OHMA student Lynn Lewis

We're excited to announce the two recipients of this year's student thesis research grant awards!

Music, Oral History, and the Self: A Look into Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields

December 27, 2017 Admin

Image taken by Chris Lee for the Krannert Center

Current OHMA student Kyna Patel (2017 cohort) reflects on the historical and political themes in composer Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields, as well as her personal connection with her work.