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ORAL HISTORY WORKSHOP
Friday, 7 February 2014
History Faculty, George St, Oxford, 1.30 to 4.30 pm
Convenors: Robert Gildea, Jan-Georg Deutsch, Margret Frenz
The workshop is designed to introduce students to Oral History. The half-day workshop is structured
around the themes of Theory, Practice, Ethics and Analysis. For each session there will be smallgroup ‘brainstorming’ followed by class discussion.
You should endeavour to read at least ONE item from each section in advance.
1 Theory
a) Is memory reliable? Can oral history recover the past or only stories about the past? Do
oral testimony and written sources require different critiques?
A. Portelli, ‘What Makes Oral History Different?’, History Workshop 12 (1981), 96-107, reprinted in
The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories (1991), 45-58, and in R. Perks and A. Thomson (eds.),
The Oral History Reader, (1998), ch. 6.
A. Thomson, ‘Unreliable Memories? The Use and Abuse of Oral History’, in W. Lamont (ed.),
Historical Controversies and Historians (1998), 23-34.
P. Thompson, The Voice of the Past (2000), 118-72.
L. White, ‘True Stories: Narrative, Event, History, and Blood in the Lake Victoria Basin’, in L. White
et al., African Words, African Voices (2001), 281-304.
b) What is the relationship between individual and social (group/collective) memory and how
do they change?
S. Crane, ‘Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory’ American Historical Review 102/4
(1997), 1372-85.
J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (1992), foreword, ch. 3.
A. Green, ‘Individual Remembering and Collective Memories: Theoretical Presuppositions and
Contemporary Debates’, Oral History, 32/2 (2004), 35-44.
J. K. Olick. and J. Robbins, ‘Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the Historical
Sociology of Mnemonic Practices’, Annual Review of Sociology, 24, (1998), pp. 105-140.
A. Portelli, ‘Oral History as a Genre’, in The Battle of Valle Giulia. Oral History and the art of
dialogue (1997), 3-23.
H. Schmidt, ‘Entangled Memories: Bindung and Identity’, in Y. Elkana, I. Krastev, E. Macamo and S.
Randeria (eds.), Unraveling Ties: From Social Cohesion to New Practices of Connectedness
(Frankfurt, 2002), pp. 199-212.
P. Thompson, Voice, (2000), 173-189.
E. Tonkin, Narrating Our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History (1992), introduction, chs 3
& 6.
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2 Practice
The interview
Who should be interviewed? Elite interviews and vox pop? How should potential interviewees be
contacted? What is the importance of cultural differences? How should you prepare for an
interview? What sort of questions should be asked? Open/closed questions or conducting a lifehistory interview? Should you let the interviewee talk freely, or probe? What can go wrong?
P. Thompson, The Voice of the Past , (2003), 173-89, 221-45.
D. Henige, Oral Historiography (1982), 39-65, 84-109.
D. Ritchie, Doing Oral History. A Practical Guide (2003), 47-109.
M. Roper, ‘Analysing the Analysed: Transference and Counter-Transference in the Oral History
encounter’, Oral history 31/2 (2003), 20-32.
V. Yow, ‘“Do I like them too much?” Effects of the Oral History Interview on the Interviewer and
Vice-versa’, in R. Perks and A. Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader, (2006), 54-72.
3 Ethics
Please consult one of the web sources below. What do you think are the major ethical issues
involved in undertaking oral historical research?
K. Blee, ‘Evidence, Empathy, and Ethics: Lessons from Oral Histories of the Klan’, The Journal of
American History 80, 2 (1993), 596-606.
V. Yow, Recording Oral History. A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Lanham, 2005),
121-156.
http://www.ohs.org.uk/ethics/
http://storytelling.concordia.ca/oralhistory/resources/tips/ethic.html
http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/oral_history_2.html
http://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices/#general
http://www.oralhistory.org.nz/code.htm
4 Analysis
Here are a number of works which have used the oral historical approach. Look at one of them
– or any other you have come across - and be prepared to say something about how
well/critically the oral testimony has been handled and how it is used in the analysis. Be aware of
the date of publication.
R. Blythe, Akenfield : Portrait of an English Village (London, 1969).
J. Cole, Forget Colonialism? Sacrifice and the Art of Memory in Madagascar (2001)
G. Dawson, Making Peace with the Past? Memory, trauma and the Irish troubles (2007).
G. E. Evans, Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay (1956).
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O. Figes, The Whisperers: private life in Stalin’s Russia (2007).
C. Merridale, Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia (2001).
M. Mouton and H. Pohlandt-McCormick, ‘Boundary crossings: oral history of Nazi Germany and
Apartheid South Africa’, History Workshop Journal 48 (1999), 41-63.
L. Passerini, Autobiography of a Generation (1996).
A. Portelli, ‘The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Memory and Event’ in The Death of Luigi Trastulli and
other stories (1991), 1-26.
M. Roseman, The Past in Hiding (2000).
M. Shostak, Nisa. The Life and Times of a !Kung Woman (1982), or M. Shostak ‘”What the Wind
won’t Take Away”. The Genesis of Nisa – The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman’, in: R. Perks and
A. Thomson (eds.), The Oral History Reader, 2nd edition, (2006), 382-392.
S. Terkel, Hard Times (1970).
A. Thomson, Anzac Memories. Living with the Legend (1994), or A. Thompson, ‘The Anzac legend:
exploring myth and memory in Australia’, in R. Samuel and P. Thompson (eds.) , The Myths we live by
(1990). See perhaps also A. Thomson, Ten Pound Poms. Australia’s Invisible Immigrants (2005).
J. Pattinson, Behind enemy Lines. Gender, Passing and the Special Operations Executive in the
Second World War (2007).