HIST-LIT 93AB: Oral Histories

Instructor: Lilly Havstad
Meeting time: Wednesday, 12:45-2:45 pm

Oral histories engage with sources that offer perspectives, life experiences, and ways of knowing that official written records can overlook or actively seek to erase from the historical record. This research seminar will explore the methods, theories, practices, and controversies that have shaped oral history as an academic field, while paying close attention to the contributions and critiques from activist oral history practitioners. In weekly readings and discussions, students will gain an appreciation for this (at times fraught) history, while also gaining a foundation in current best practices for doing oral history. Students will also have multiple opportunities for putting their oral history training into practice. The first half of the course will be focused on student engagement with oral history theory and scholarship alongside existing oral history collections (as primary sources) towards developing an understanding of the field and studying various models for doing oral history. In the second half of the course, students will develop and execute an oral history project that will involve: background research, research design, interviewing (with digital recording), transcription, and presentation of research findings in both oral and written formats. Over the semester, students will learn how to incorporate oral histories into their research, with attention to research ethics and an understanding that oral history research cannot be conducted independently of other methods of historical research. Students will practice oral history methods, engaging with oral sources to learn ways of “close reading” oral histories.