In response to Sean Dorsey’s talk “Dancing with THE MISSING GENERATION: centering trans oral histories”, current OHMA student Nora Waters considers ways of building intersubjective containers with room for more than two.
Read MoreReview: “The B-Side: ‘Negro Folklore From Texas State Prisons’ A Record Album Interpretation"
In this post, OHMA alum Bud Kliment reviews “The B-Side: ‘Negro Folklore From Texas State Prisons’ A Record Album Interpretation” a performance piece of musical theater and oral history based on the 1965 LP “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons.”
Read MoreReflections on the 2018 Oral History Association Annual Meeting
In this post, OHMA alumni and recipient of our alumni travel grant Lynn Lewis reflects on her experience presenting at the 2018 Oral History Association annual meeting in Montreal. The 2019 call for papers is now open!
Engaging and transforming the spaces around us…...
In this blog post, OHMA student Brad Bailey reflects on the intersection of film, art, community engagement, and representation.
Read MoreWikimedia to the Rescue? How Wikipedia’s Crowdsourcing Model Could Catalyze the Field of Oral History.
Can the Wikimedia platform, tools and model help solve Oral History’s biggest problem - transcribing and digitizing the overwhelming number of unprocessed oral histories sitting in vaults around the world? Current Oral History MA student & Wikipedia Fellow (and Columbia’s first ever Wikimedian-In-Residence) Darold Cuba explores this possibility in a reflection of a Nov. 1, 2018 talk presented by Doug Boyd in the 2018 - 2019 OHMA workshop series, Oral History and the Future: Archives and Embodied Memory.
Read MoreTalking Knots: Decolonizing Oral History through Alternative Methods of Memory Transmission
In this blog post, OHMA student Caroline Cunfer reflects on colonized ideas of history and record-keeping, and how as oral historians we can reconsider and expand our processes of memory transmission to engage in ways that are natural and meaningful to the communities we are working with.
Read MoreArt and Art-making: The Meticulous Presence of the Encounter
In this post, current OHMA student Nora Waters explores the inherent creative practice of the encounter, whether it be lithography or an interview, after discovering that she has lived much of her life as a maker without a medium.
Read MoreAnnouncing GSAS/OHMA Student Research Grant Recipients
Photo by Benji de la Piedra
Join us in celebrating the recipients of the GSAS/OHMA Student Research Grants!
Read MoreTo Curate, Or Not To Curate, That is the Question
On a visit to Columbia University, author and scholar Sujatha Fernandes explored the effects of manipulating storytelling in order to achieve desired results. In this article, OHMA student Renaldo McClinton will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of curating stories through social media and other digital platforms.
Read MoreFall 2018 Student and Alumni News
As we wrap up the 2018-2019 school year, please join us in celebrating the news and accomplishments of our students and alums!
Read MoreA New Dawn: Eric Marcus’s Why Suicide & Oral History’s Healing Process
In this post, based on Eric Marcus’s presentation, current Oral History MA student Lizzie Li discusses suicide loss and oral history’s healing process.
Read MoreGDPR and the future of OHMS: A Scottish Perspective
In this post, current OHMA student Rebecca McGilveray explores the future of OHMS in the context of Scotland after Doug Boyd’s recent workshop, “Accelerating Change, Oral History, Innovation and Impact.”
Read MoreThe Synchronizer and the Sexatron
Eileen Welsome, a journalist and author, is a first-year OHMA student who in this post examines how a digital innovation at the University of Kentucky’s Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History is making oral histories more accessible.
Read MoreThe Power of Digital Oral History: From Silence to Democratization
In response to Doug Boyd’s Nov 1 talk on Accelerating Change: Oral History, Innovation, and Impact, current OHMA student Michael Heesup Kimm reflects on how the multimedia transition has affected not only the process of conducting oral history interviews but also the way we store and disseminate such valuable recordings.
Read More“Transformative Oral History: Past, Present, and Future”
Illustration by Eunice Kim, not to be used without permission.
Eunice Kim, first-year OHMA student, explores the transformation of radio and digital cultures—how it influences the ways archived interviews are perceived, used, and listened to.
Read MoreNaming and the Gay Archive: Eric Marcus’ Making Gay History and Queering History-Building
Maya Garfinkel, Barnard College senior and History major, reflects on the power of naming in queer history-making, inspired by Eric Marcus’ OHMA talk on his project “Making Gay History.”
Tell me your story?
In response to Sujatha Fernandes’ talk on The Uses of Narrative in Organizing for Social Justice on October 4th, current OHMA student Nairy AbdElShafy reflects on how individuals choose to curate their own stories, when given the space and agency to do so and how this serves as a representation of their own culture and history.
Read MoreFriendly Reminders: Archive Your Interviews! Take Fieldnotes! Archive Those Too!
What happens when you have countless hours of people’s stories, stories that you know are extremely valuable, but no one else seems to see it in that way? When you have pages and pages of journal entries, field notes, or documents describing the beautiful encounters you’ve had with individuals that are relying on you to pass on their stories, but no one seems to care? Like Eric Marcus, you might store your cassette tapes (or mp3 files) in a dark storage closet only to find that you will later use them to create something beautiful and inspirational to many.
Read More2018 Oral History Association: It’s a Spirit
In this post, OHMA alumni and recipient of our alumni travel grant Svetlana Kitto reflects on her 2018 Oral History Association experience in Montreal.
The Ethics of Curated Storytelling
Reflecting on Sujatha Fernandes’ talk on The Uses of Narrative in Organizing for Social Justice on October 4th, current OHMA student Tianrui Yu ponders the justice of story telling.