ORAL HISTORY WORKSHOP

This course introduces students to important conversations within and about oral history through a series of curated public events.

This semester our events will explore how oral history lives in places and communities around New York City through a series of place-based events, curated in collaboration with partners around the city.

We meet approximately 6 times/semester.

• R 6 p.m.-8 p.m.
• 1 points

ORAL HIST:FIELDWORK/DOCUMENTN

This seminar is the first half of a two-semester practicum in which students will learn and practice the critical skills required to conceptualize, conduct, analyze and disseminate oral history projects in a range of contexts and communities.

 

In the Fall semester, we will learn project design, approaches to interviewing and other genres of oral history, remote and in-person audio recording, transcribing, indexing, and digital archiving. Students will have the option of working on oral history projects conducted in partnership with Fieldwork Partners or working on their own projects. 

 

By the Spring semester course on Curating Oral Histories, students will be expected to be primarily working on their own projects. In the Spring we will focus most of our attention on the analysis and dissemination of oral histories, including audio editing, online presentation, museum exhibits, and other public oral history genres. Our spring work will culminate in a collaboratively curated interactive public exhibit

• W 10:10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• 5 points

ORAL HISTORY INTERNSHIP

• W 2:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• Instructor: Amy A Starecheski
  h-index: 5 Info
• 2-4 points

VIDEO PRODUCTION FOR VISUAL STORYTELLING

VIDEO PRO FOR VISUAL STOR

Students will have hands-on learning experiences using camera controls and techniques and optics to accentuate psychological and atmospheric aspects surrounding the subject. Additionally, through visual storytelling, composition and basic color theory students will understand how to incorporate theories of cinematic language to emphasize the mood and perception of the story. This course will cover basic lighting techniques for the interview in a hands-on practical experience that will strengthen participants’ camera, cinematography and storytelling skills. Students will complete the course by creating a final short video, having collaboratively conceptualized, filmed, interviewed and shot the necessary B-roll to structure a basic visual storytelling piece with the use of image, sound and basic editing.

• T 2:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Oscar Frasser
  Info
• 4 points

Oral History & Justice: Memory, Power, a

HUM RGTS & ORAL HIST

This course will explore the ethics and politics of using oral history methods for documenting injustice, oppression, and human rights issues. The course is open to graduate students of oral history, human rights, journalism, and related fields; no prior experience with oral history interviewing is required. Oral history can be a powerful means of documenting oppression, human rights abuses, and crisis “from the bottom up” and facilitating the understanding and possible transformation of conditions of injustice. It can open the space for people and narratives that have been marginalized to challenge official narratives and complicate narrow accounts of injustice and crisis. The course will first explore what is distinct about oral history as a response to harm or injustice, comparing it to more familiar forms of testimony and narrative used within the realm of human rights, social justice organizations and courts of law. With its commitment to life narrative interviews and archival preservation, oral history situates injustice within the broader context of a life, a historical trajectory, and a political and cultural setting. Weaving together conceptual and practical approaches, we will examine different potential goals of oral history, such as documenting the experiences of people who have been marginalized; seeking justice; fostering dialogue and healing; and/or supporting activism and advocacy. The course covers interviewing skills and project planning specifically for oral history projects about injustice and human rights, and explores various dimensions of how power, politics, and ethics come into play — how politics and power shape the way a narrative is heard; the challenges of realizing ideals of collaboration and shared authority amid uneven power dynamics; contending with the effects of trauma on both narrators and interviewers; and critical considerations for projects produced with activist and advocacy aims. We will explore how oral history can work alongside other forms of memory and witnessing that go beyond words, such as activism, film, and memorials.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Suchitra Vijayan
  Info
• 4 points