CALLING ALL LOCAL ORAL HISTORIANS: HumanitiesDC and the DC History Center offer an oral history meetup in Washington, DC!
Join us at the DC History Center on Monday, November 25 at 6 pm to be in community with other oral historians. During the meetup we’ll share ideas, talk through challenges and obstacles, and celebrate successes. This meetup, ahead of Thanksgiving, we encourage the group to consider the role of oral history in family memory keeping.
This meetup might be for you, if you:
- attended the last oral history meetup
- conducted an oral history interview in the past
- want to conduct oral histories in the future
- participated as a narrator in an oral history and want to learn more about it
- received a DCOHC grant
- are looking to improve your practice
- want to talk about oral history ethics
- attended DCOHC trainings
- are looking to connect with other practitioners
You do not have to be a practicing oral historian to participate, but come prepared to learn from others and to share your own thoughts, perspectives, and experiences. The first part of the evening will include bites and beverages and small group conversation. Then, we’ll move to the exhibit space to chat as a group.
ACCESSIBILITY? At registration, please let us know about allergies or make accommodation requests. ASL must be requested one week in advance.
QUESTIONS? Email Jasper Collier: jcollier@humanitiesdc.org.
GETTING TO THE DC HISTORY CENTER:
The DC History Center is located at 801 K Street NW. We recommend taking public transportation as parking is difficult to find near the building. Metro: Mt. Vernon Sq. Convention Center (yellow, green) Gallery Place Chinatown (red, yellow, green), Metro Center (orange, blue, silver)
WHAT IS ORAL HISTORY?
Oral history is an intentional effort to document the memories and life experiences of individuals, often referred to as narrators, by recording conversational interviews with them and seeking to preserve those recordings in an institutional or personal archive.
Oral history is closely related to storytelling, journalism, and certain kinds of social science research. It differs from these forms of interviewing in its focus on the life of the individual narrator, its acceptance of subjectivity in the memory of lived experiences, and its impulse to create archival resources that can fill the gaps in existing historical narratives.
HumanitiesDC and the DC Oral History Collaborative
The DC Oral History Collaborative was started in 2017 to encourage Washington, DC residents to record the stories of their communities, share them with the public, and preserve them for the future. Since then, hundreds of oral history fans and practitioners have taken the Collaborative’s training, started projects, and attended oral history related events. Learn more about HumanitiesDC online: https://humanitiesdc.org/.
