The Oral History Society and the British Library have announced the next date for their course, An Introduction to Oral History for Family Historians. The course would suit any keen family history researchers who want to open up their research to new and exciting possibilities. Oral history is a fantastic way of doing this. The… [Read more…]
January 10, 2012
by Fiona Cosson
The Oral History Association Annual Meeting 2012- Cleveland, Ohio, USA Sing It Out, Shout It Out, Say It Out Loud: Giving Voice through Oral History Voices raised in song, in anger, in celebration, in protest, in joy, in memoriam–all have been gathered by oral historians in the course of their work. Over the years the methodology of oral history… [Read more…]
January 2, 2012
by Fiona Cosson
Happy New Year All! I’d like to draw your attention to a project called Occupy Oral History which has just started, following closely on the heels of and inspired by the broader Occupy History and the Occupy Movement more generally. The project is looking to be an on-line resource as well as an umbrella group under which historians… [Read more…]
December 24, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Happy Christmas and Festivities, Everyone! Here are some short Christmas reunion stories to make you feel all warm and fuzzy by flavour of the month writer Craig Taylor (author of Londoners): http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/23/heathrow-airport-family-friends-reunions
December 22, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has recently annouced it has an increased budget for new awards in 2012-13 of £375million, an increase of of £120million from the 2011-2012 budget. The increase is because HLF now receive a greater proportion of the National Lottery good causes money, and lottery ticket sale shave increased. There are a number of increases in the different types of grants… [Read more…]
December 16, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The Scottish Labour History Society has recently published a volume focussing on oral history. The Society was formed in 1961 and to celebrate their 50th anniversary, they have devoted the current issue of the journal, Scottish Labour History (Volume 46) to oral history. The content includes an introduction to the journal, Fiftieth Anniversary Guest Editorial: Working Class History and the People’s Voice… [Read more…]
Guest Post by Cynthia Brown Last month 35 oral historians got together in Ipswich for the Oral History Society‘s annual regional networkers event. The event, organised by regional network co-ordinator Juliana Vandegrift, enables the society’s network of oral historians around the country to get together, share stories and catch up both on personal and society… [Read more…]
November 22, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
As part of UK Disability History Month, the British Library is making available a new online package of oral history interviews – Disability Voices– which charts the experiences of disabled people. The Disability Voices online interviews have been collated from a number of project partnerships and collections gathered over the past decade, and more will… [Read more…]
November 16, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
This just a signposting blogpost today to point out a short article that appeared in the US version of “The Daily” (the News Corporation’s iPad newspaper) on 7th November 2011. It contains a few interesting snipppets from the authors/ compilers of recent and popular oral history books. From the AIDS crisis to the birth of punk, to tales from the… [Read more…]
October 31, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Students and staff at the University of Sheffield have begun work on ‘Life in Sheffield in the 1980s’, a new oral history project for students at the Department of History at the University of Sheffield: ‘When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground’. History isn’t just books in the library, it’s also people’s… [Read more…]
October 30, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The inaugural Spring School in Oral History will be held on 26-28 April 2012 at the Institute for Historical Research, London, in association with the Oral History Society. The first two days will focus upon six major themes, or issues, within oral history: memory; experience; the researcher’s habitus; re-use of recordings; representativeness and generalisability; and… [Read more…]
October 18, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Brighton Swimming Club has received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to create an accessible archive that delves into a fascinating and extensive heritage of swimming in Brighton using archives that date back to 1860. Founded on the 4th May 1860, at a meeting held at the Jolly Fisherman’s Inn in Market Street, Brighton –… [Read more…]
October 17, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
At 8.22am on Friday 22nd September 1989 a massive blast destroyed all three floors of the recreation centre at the Royal Marine School of Music, Deal, killing 10 bandsmen and injuring 22, one of whom died a month later. The Deal Barracks bombing was part of a concerted campaign by the IRA against the deployment of… [Read more…]
October 13, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The Public History group has been running at Ruskin College alongside conferences, seminars and the MA in Public History for some 15 years. With the decision to stop running the successful MA in Public History – which was the first of its kind in Britain and followed the long tradition of history-making at Ruskin pioneered… [Read more…]
October 12, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Post by Janet Swan and Sarah Lee Football, not cotton is the thread running through the lives of people in Burnley in an area once at the heart of the weaving industry. And now for the first time, the stories, memories and traditions of fans are being woven together into Burnley Football Club’s first unofficial history.… [Read more…]
October 3, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories at the University of Brighton has announced its seminar series for the academic year 2011-2012: 19 October 2011: Professor Timothy Ashplant, independent scholar ‘Working-class Life Writing: from Micro-story to Macro-perspectives through a Critical and Pedagogic Online Edition’ 9 November 2011: Professor Christine Gledhill, University of Sunderland ‘The… [Read more…]
Wendy Ugolini, history lecturer at Edinburgh University and Oral History Society committee member, talks about her new book: “Having started my oral history research on the experiences of Italians in Scotland during the Second World War many years ago, it is immensely satisfying to see the final version published as part of Manchester University Press’s… [Read more…]
September 19, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
This post is another article signposting, this time to a piece in The Wall Street Journal. With the considerable rise in using oral history as a way to write “popular” and accessible histories of people, trends, events and phenomena, and in this case, music, Mark Yarm, author of the well-received Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History… [Read more…]
September 5, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The Association of Art Historians is proud to announce the launch of our online resource of audio recordings, Voices in Art History: AAH Oral Histories. The Association of Art Historians was formed in 1974, born out of a need to professionalize a rapidly growing subject. But what exactly prompted the formation of the AAH? How… [Read more…]
September 1, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Here’s a great little blog post I spotted on the Hodder History Nest website by John D. Clare, in which he discusses the use of oral history in the secondary school classroom and makes a plea to Historian (and Government Advisor) Simon Schama: Link to article here
August 22, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Along with many oral history enthusiasts from the East Midlands and beyond, I attended the East Midlands Oral History Archive’s (EMOHA) Oral History Day on Wednesday 6th July 2011. It was a great day, with many interesting presentations and a good exchange of ideas for, and experiences of, the world of oral history. Towards the end… [Read more…]
August 15, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The BBC have revamped some of their oral history guidance. The older stuff had been languishing in their website since 2005. The new stuff, filed under their Hands on History brand, now includes a video, entitled “How to undertake your own oral history interview”. There are some basic but shiny new PDF guidance sheets too.… [Read more…]
August 12, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
I listened to a really interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning, The Reunion, which reunited Nick Leeson, the man who broke Barings Bank, with his colleagues and former boss, Peter Norris. Nick Leeson was the trader whose fraud caused the UK’s oldest investment bank to collapse in 1995 with £830 million of debt. The… [Read more…]
August 1, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Just a small post today to point out the piece in the Financial Times about oral history at the British Library and the work of National Life Stories. The article “History in the Speaking” was published last Friday and you can read it here. With thanks to Craig Fees for circulating this.
July 28, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
The call for papers for the 17th International Oral History Association Conference is now open, and this time the conference will be held in Argentina! The International Conference of the International Oral History Association takes place every two years, on a different continent where oral history and IOHA have regional and local presence: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania,… [Read more…]
July 27, 2011
by Fiona Cosson
Yey, oral history seminars are now alive and kicking at the Institute for Historical Research, London! They are organised by Dr Shelley Trower (Exeter) and Dr Michelle Winslow (Sheffield). Forthcoming seminars include: 19th January 2012- Carrie Hamilton, Roehampton University, on Oral history in conditions of political conflict and controversy 19th April 2012 Steven High, Concordia University, on Montreal life stories: oral history at the… [Read more…]
January 17, 2012
by Anne
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