FranaWiki talk:Community Portal

Oral History and Community Memory: Class Discussion Topics

• What is Oral History and Who Does It?

Oral history is a very interdisciplinary craft. It is employed by historians, archivists, librarians, folklorists, anthopologists, educators, journalists, linguists, and genealogists.

• The History of Oral History

Earliest transcript in archives of the Columbia Oral History Research Office contains a first-hand account of the 1863 draft riots in New York City.

• Oral History Projects and Collections
• What is Ethnography?
• Ethnography Projects and Collections
• Arkansas Traveler’s Project (contact: Alli Hogue)
• Ethics & Sponsored Projects Office
• Release Forms/Ownership
• Photography
• Videography
• Video Editing Software
• Care of Ethnography Lab & Equipment
• Paying for OH: Grants and Proposals for Clinton project/Arkansas Heritage Council/SURF
• Knowledge Database: FranaWiki
• Creating/Editing Wikis/Standards that Apply
• Transcription/Processing Transcripts/Footnoting
• Archiving & Accessibility

The Internet has thrown open to millions the door to interview transcripts and audio archives.

• Sources/Background Research
• Interviewer’s Field Notes
• Life History Forms
• Professionalism/Public Relations/Correspondence

Oral history is a natural habitation for extroverts and conversationalists.

• Compiling Interview Topics & Questions
• Practice Interviewing on Each Other
• Personal Project
• Clinton Library & Downtown Little Rock Project
• Practice Interviewing on Doctor/Final Exam
• Oral History Documentaries/Musicals/Websites/Radio/Interpretive Skits
• UCA Folklore Collection (contact: Jimmy Bryant)
• Oral History in Scholarly Work
• Visiting the Library & Heifer HQ/Doe’s Eat Place
• Interviewing Style/Silence/Location/Active Listening

The best advice I can share is that oral history involves experiential learning, that is, learning by doing.

• Gathering Artifacts/Manuscript Material from Interviewee

• Criticisms of Oral History
  • Memory
  • Intersubjectivity
  • Presentism/Creating Usable Pasts
  • Mythmaking

• Interviewing Elites/Ordinary People
• Improving your methods/Reflecting on Interviews Conducted/Retrospective essay
• Types of Interviewing Products: Transcripts, Audio, Video
• Impact of Oral History on the Community
• Curriculum Development
• Assignment Read and Critique a Past Oral History: Clinton Project, Rick Scott, Women’s Abuse, HCOL history
• Clinton Library Visit by Skip Rutherford or Jose Guzzardi or Amanda Harris?
• Downtown Revitalization
• New Urbanism, Gentrification (contact: Patrick Taylor)