IHR ORAL HISTORY SYLLABUS 2010
Anna Davin
anna.davin@blueyonder.co.uk
This course examines the uses of oral history along with issues relating to it as
method and as practice. The object is for students to develop experience and critical
understanding of this historical approach, in order to make use of it in research. The
course is loosely based around themes, and our sessions will be seminars, based partly
on the discussion of reading and partly around interviews by class members.
You are unlikely to read everything on the weekly lists. They are intended to give
choices, not to overwhelm. But please try to read something relevant for each class,
preferably if not exclusively from the readings listed below (mainly articles), and be
prepared to report to the group on what you have read or to join in discussion.
Most of the recommended articles are from two journals held in IHR stacks:
Oral History (abbreviated as OH): indispensable
History Workshop Journal (HWJ) (available via JSTOR + IHR open shelves)
or from The Oral History Reader, ed. Rob Perks and Alastair Thomson (OHR). There
are several editions of this with slightly differing contents. I use the first.
Some readings are in two volumes from the 2000 conference ‘Frontiers of
Memory’. These are available in paperback from Transaction Press (US) as: Memory,
History, Nation: Contested Pasts, ed. Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone; and
Memory Cultures: Memory, Subjectivity and Recognition ed. Susannah Radstone and
Katharine Hodgkin. (Originally Contested Pasts: the Politics of Memory, ed. Hodgkin
and Radstone, and Regimes of Memory, ed. Radstone and Hodgkin, Routledge 2003.)
For general background see John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, 2002 edn, chap. 11
(‘History by Word of Mouth’); Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past (1978) any edn.
Joanna Bornat (ed.), Reminiscence Reviewed, 1994
Mary Chamberlain, Growing Up in Lambeth, 1989
George Ewart Evans, Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay (and other books)
Hall Carpenter Archives Lesbian Oral History Group, Inventing Ourselves: Lesbian
Life Stories, 1989
James Hammerton and Alistair Thomson, Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible
Migrants
Jerry White, Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East End Tenement Block, 1887-1920,
1980; + The Worst Street in East London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, between the
Wars, 1989
Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and other Stories: Form and
Meaning in Oral History, 1991 (+ anything else by him)
Raphael Samuel, East End Underworld: Chapters in the Life of Arthur Harding
Mike Phillips and Trevor Phillips, Windrush: the Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial
Britain, 1998
Studs Terkel, Division Street, America, 1966 (and anything else by him)
The Oral History Society’s website is very useful: www.oralhistory.org.uk
1
18 Jan
Introductory
2
25 Jan
Ethics and ownership
Readings
Ethics statement on Oral History Society website: www.oralhistory.org.uk/ethics
OH 26: 2, autumn 1998: Wendy Rickard, ‘“More Dangerous than Therapy”?’; +
Sheena Rolph, ‘Ethical Dilemmas: Oral History Work with People with Learning
Difficulties’
OH 31: 1, 2003: Barry S. Godfrey, ‘ “Reader I Killed Him”: Ethical + Emotional
Issues in Researching Convicted Murderers through Analysis of Interview
Transcripts’
OH 34: 1, 2006: Parita Mukta, ‘The Attrition of Memories: Ethics, Morality +
Futures’
Oral History Review (US) 22:1, 1995: Valerie Yow, ‘Ethics and Interpersonal
Relationships in Oral History Research’
OH 36:2 2008: Carrie Hamilton, ‘On Being a Good Interviewer: Empathy, Ethics +
the Politics of Oral History’
OHR: (part 4) Kathleen Blee, ‘Evidence, Empathy + Ethics: Lessons from Oral
Histories of the Klan’
OHR: (pt 5) Jane Mace, ‘Reminiscence as Literacy: intersections + creative moments’
3
1 Feb The Interview
Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past, 1978, esp. chap. 6 + ‘Model Questions’
OHR, part 2: Kathryn Anderson + Dana C. Jack, ‘Learning to Listen: Interview
Techniques + Analyses’
OH 26: 2. 1998: David Jones, ‘Distressing Histories + Unhappy Interviewing’
OH 24: 1, 1996: Jo Stanley, ‘Including the Feelings’
OH 31: 1, 2003: Rena Feld, ‘From the Interviewer’s Perspective: Interviewing
Women Conscientious Objectors’
OH 32: 2 2004, Neil Rafeek, Angela Bartie + Hilary Young, ‘Scotland and “The
Coalition for Justice Not War” March, Glasgow, 15 Feb. 2003’
If you have already made any interviews it would be very helpful for the class to
hear something from them during this session.
4
8 Feb Life Histories
HWJ 14, 1982: Angela Hewins, ‘The Making of a Working-class Biography, The
Dillen’ (and Hewins, The Dillen, 1981, which I can lend)
Mary Chamberlain + Paul Thompson, ‘Genre and Narrative in Life Stories’, in their
Narrative and Genre, 1998
Peter Coleman, ‘Reminiscence within the Study of Aging’, in Reminiscence
Reviewed, ed. Bornat
OHR: (pt 2) Jan Walmsley, ‘Life History Interviews with People with Learning
Disabilities’; Akemi Kikumura, ‘Family Life Histories: a Collaborative Venture’; (pt
5) Marjorie Shostak, ‘“What the Wind Won’t Take Away”: the genesis of Nisa – The
Life and Words of a !Kung Woman’
OH 36:2, autumn 2008, ‘Chriss Bull, Alastair McIntosh + Colin Clark, ‘Land,
Identity, School: Exploring Women’s Identity with Land in Scotland through the
Experience of School’
Caroline Daley, ‘He would know, but I just have a feeling’, Women’s History Review
7: 3, Sept, 88
Ronald Fraser, In Search of a Past: the Manor House, Amnersfield, 1933-45, 1984
Raphael Samuel, East End Underworld: chapters in the Life of Arthur Harding, 1981
5
15 Feb
Interpretation and Processing
OHR part 4: Katherine Borland, ‘“That’s Not What I Said”: Interpretative Conflict in
Oral Narrative Research’; Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, ‘Telling Tales: Oral History
and the Construction of pre-Stonewall Lesbian History’ (and any other articles in pt 4)
OHR (part 5): Raphael Samuel, ‘The Perils of the Transcript’
HWJ 43, 1997: Mary Chamberlain, ‘Gender and the Narratives of Migration’
HWJ 48, 1999: Michelle Mouton and Helena Pohlandt McCormick, ‘Boundary
Crossings: Oral History of Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa’
OH 35: 2, 2007: Anna Bryson, ‘“Whatever you Say, Say Nothing”: Researching
Memory and Identity in mid-Ulster, 1945-1969’,
Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority, chap. 5 (‘Preparing Interview Transcripts for
Documentary Publication’)
Sally Alexander, ‘The Mysteries + Secrets of Women’s Bodies: Sexual Knowledge in
the 1st half of the 20c’, in Modern Times, ed. Mica Nava + Alan O’Shea
OHR (part 4): Alistair Thomson, ‘Anzac Memories: Putting Popular Memory Theory
into Practice in Australia’
6
22 Feb
Individual and Collective Remembering
OH 32: 2, 2004: Anna Green, ‘Individual Remembering and “Collective Memory”:
Theoretical Presuppositions and Contemporary Debates’
Katharine Hodgkin + Susannah Radstone, ‘Introduction’, Memory, History, Nation:
Contested Pasts
Marianne Hirsch + Leo Spitzer, ‘We Would Not Have Come Without You’, also in
Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts
Rigoberta Menchú, I Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian Woman in Guatemala, 1984
(NB check online for subsequent controversy)
Paul Thompson, Introduction, Our Common History: the Transformation of Europe,
ed. Paul Thompson with Natasha Burchardt, 1982
OH 26: 2, 1998: Nigel Hunt + Ian Robbins, ‘Telling Stories of the War: Aging
Veterans Coping with their Memories through Narrative’,
Hall Carpenter Archives Gay Men’s Oral History Group, Walking After Midnight:
Gay Men’s Life Stories, 1989; Hall Carpenter Archives Lesbian Oral History Group,
Inventing Ourselves: Lesbian Life Stories, 1989
OH 35: 2, 2007: Graham Smith, ‘Beyond Individual / Collective memory: Women’s
Transactive memories of Food, Family and Conflict’
7
1 March
Memory and Political History
OHR (part 1): Luisa Passerini, ‘Work Ideology and Consensus under Italian Fascism’
(also in HWJ 8, 1979 and in Our Common History)
OH 34: 2, 2006, Alessandro Portelli, ‘So Much Depends on a Red Bus, or, Innocent
Victims of the Liberating Gun’
Carrie Hamilton, ‘Memories of Violence in Interviews with Basque Nationalist
Women’, in Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts
HWJ 58, 2004: Yasmin Saikia, ‘Beyond the Archive of Silence: Narratives of
Violence in the Liberation War of Bangladesh’
OH 35: 2, 2007: Christof Dejung, ‘Dissonant Memories: National Identity, Political
Power, and the Commemoration of World War Two in Switzerland’
HWJ 57, spring 2004: Jocelyn Alexander + JoAnn McGregor, ‘War Stories: Guerrilla
Narratives of Zimbabwe’s Liberation War’
David Ellwood + Anna Bravo, ‘Oral History and Resistance History in Italy’, in Our
Common History. ed. Paul Thompson + Natasha Burchardt, 1982
Graham Dawson, Making Peace with the Past? Memory, Trauma and the Irish
Troubles, 2007
8
8 March
Oral History on Film
‘Somerstown’, Sue Crockford, 1982 (Thames TV documentary for Channel 4)
9
15 March
Uses of Testimony
HWJ 31, 1991: Greg Lanning, ‘Television History Workshop: the Brixton Tapes’
HWJ 31, 1981: Séamas O Catháin, ‘The Irish Folklore Archive’,
OH 26: 2, 1998: Pam Schweitzer, ‘Oral History in Schools: We Want to Speak of Old
Times’
Sally Alexander, ‘The Mysteries + Secrets of Women’s Bodies: Sexual Knowledge in
the 1st half of the 20c’, in Modern Times: Reflections on a Century of Modernity, ed.
Mica Nava + Alan O’Shea, 1996
HWJ 54, 2002: Steven High, ‘Deindustrializing Youngstown: Memories of Resistance
and Loss following “Black Monday”’
HWJ 56, 2003: Jock McCulloch, ‘Asbestos Mining and Occupational Disease in
Southern Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe, 1915-98’
OH 32: 2, 2004: Simon Guest, ‘Cure, Superstition, Infection and Reaction:
Tuberculosis in Ireland, 1932-1957’
HWJ 65, spring 2008, Orlando Figes, ‘Private Life in Stalin’s Russia: Family
Narratives, Memory and Oral History’
HWJ 66, autumn 2008, Shirli Gilbert, ‘Yiddish Songs + Holocaust Memory’
10
22 March
Oral History, Heritage and Public History
Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority, chap. 2 (‘The Memory of History’)
Patrick Wright, On Living in an Old Country (1985), Intro to new edn 2009
OHR (part 3): Joanna Bornat, ‘Oral History as a Social Movement: Reminiscence and
Older People’
OH 28: 2, 2000: Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie, ‘Dispossession and Memory: the Black
River Community of Cape Town’; Hazel Tucker, ‘Tourism and the Loss of Memory
in Zelve, Cappadocia’, OH 28: 2, 2000
OH 29: 2, 2001: Tony Kushner, ‘Oral History at the Extremes of Human Experience:
Holocaust Testimony in a Museum Setting’
OH 32: 2, 2004: Stuart Davies and Crispin Paine, ‘Talking about Museums: the
Insider’s Voice’
OH 35: 2, 2007: Sarah Housden and Jenny Zmorczek, ‘Exploring Identity in Later
Life through BBC People’s War Interviews’
Anything in Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts ed. Hodgkin + Radstone, pt 3
11
29 March
Final Workshop and review of the course