Cat (Sketches from Life), Shen Zhou The day before the interview, I grab a journal and simply jot down a few questions that I definitely want to ask and leave some space in between each to write down follow up topics when I conduct the actual interview. There are times when people jump from topic to … Continue reading Interviewing: Our Experience
The Apple Paring, Clementine Hunter This is a step-by-step piece on oral history interviewing. We will discuss designing an oral history collection, background research, and getting in touch with narrators. Lastly, we’re going to address pre-interviewing and interviewing best practices. Step One: Project Design and Background Research As we’ve mentioned in the first episode of … Continue reading “Do you have another question?” Oral History Interviewing: Ethics and Best Practices | Episode Three
This blog post is the next in a series showcasing the Religions Texas Archive. Religions Texas is a community archive and public humanities initiative that explores Texas as a site of religious encounters and a meeting place for people and communities from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. It's rooted in practices of oral history, storytelling, … Continue reading An Inside Look at the Religions Texas Archive: the Corona Chronicles Collection
We're very excited about the 2021 cohort of Migration Narratives Project grantees-- an impressive group of scholars, religious and community leaders, activists, and artists who will be working to tell the many stories of immigrants and refugees in Texas through narrative, oral history and other interpretive storytelling methods over the next six months. We're also … Continue reading A Big Thanks to the Migration Narratives Project Grants Jury Committee!
The Institute for Diversity and Civic Life’s Migration Narratives Project is a grant-making initiative supporting community-based narrative projects that document and explore experiences of migration in Texas and contribute to the public understanding of immigration and refugee experiences. Grantees receive funding, participate in a cohort over the grant period and will share the findings of … Continue reading 2021 Migration Narratives Project Grantees
Hello! My name is Eva McNabb, and I am the spring intern here at IDCL. Today’s blog post is dedicated to showcasing the Religions Texas Archive and specifically the Muslim Voices collection. I had the opportunity to speak with some of IDCL’s staff members about the process of interviewing, transcribing, and curating the collection, and … Continue reading An Inside Look at the Religions Texas Archive: Muslim Voices Collection
Inspired by the Institute of Diversity and Civic Life (IDCL)’s work, Eleonora Anedda explores IDCL’s approach to its oral history transcripts, and how their method presents a way to navigate the challenges of preserving the relationship between the narrator and the transcript.
Oral history and tradition have been around since humanity started to tell stories. The Iliad and Odyssey were passed down orally for many centuries before Homer (or someone else, depending on which side of the “Homer question” you’re on) actually wrote them down. However, scholars only began to see oral history’s validity and potential in the 1930s. In this piece, I will highlight some of the key moments in the life of Oral History as an academic field — with particular focus on the Western and American academy. - Eleonora Anedda
The Institute for Diversity and Civic Life is pleased to announce that we have been selected by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) as a host organization for a Leading Edge Fellowship, which demonstrates the potential of humanistic knowledge and methods to solve problems, build capacity, and advance justice and equity in society. Leading … Continue reading IDCL Named ACLS Leading Edge Fellowship Host Organization
This is the first piece of a series on the many dimensions of oral history. Here we briefly introduce oral history as a methodology and we address critics’ concern over the reliability of oral history sources. In the next episodes of this series, we are going to talk about the history of this field and how it came to be what it is today; interviewing, ethics and best practices; transcribing; archiving and curating oral histories in digital archives; and lastly, IDCL’s lived religion approach and method for the Religions Texas Oral History Project. - Eleonora Anedda
