Oral History Lunchtime Seminars: October 2022

The Oral History Unit and Collective has organised two lunchtime online seminars in October, with guest speakers from the UK, Egypt and India.

Wednesday October 12th: Oral history and activism – guest speakers @TionneParris (Young Historians Project) and @Nandini Oza (Narmada Bachao Andolan)

Event brite: Oral history and activism – an on-line lunchtime seminar Tickets, Wed 12 Oct 2022 at 13:00 | Eventbrite

Wednesday October 19th: Oral history with refugees and migrants – guest speakers Tania Gessi (Roma Support Group) and Nairy Abdel Shafy (Egyptian educator, and oral historian)

Event brite: Oral history with refugees and migrants – an online lunchtime seminar Tickets, Wed 19 Oct 2022 at 13:00 | Eventbrite

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“Communities and Change” – welcoming the 2023 Memory Studies Association to Newcastle

The international Memory Studies Association recently released the call for papers for its 2023 conference, to be held in Newcastle. Oral History Collective member Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips is part of the organising committee. Here she explains why she’s so excited to see this particular conference held here in the North East.

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Authenticity and authority? Changing memories of Holocaust resistance

How Oral History helped to disrupt the appropriation of the ‘White Rose’ resistance

This year’s [2022] Brundibár Arts Festival was opened by Silvie Fisch of the Oral History Collective. The annual festival is dedicated to the music and arts of the Holocaust. This year’s festival theme is inspirational women and Silvie spoke about the changing public history of Sophie Scholl. Here is an edited version of Silvie’s talk.

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Animals in store: the Book Trade and Animal Histories

Here, Sue Bradley finds some half-forgotten animals and resolves to listen out for more. Sue is a member of the Newcastle University Oral History Unit and Collective and a Research Associate on FIELD (Farm-level Interdisciplinary Approaches to Endemic Livestock Disease) in Newcastle University’s Centre for Rural Economy. Her article, ‘Hobday’s hands: recollections of touch in veterinary practice’ appeared in Oral History, vol 49, no 1, 2021.

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Podcast Episode – Jack Hepworth

In this episode, historian of modern Ireland and Britain, Jack Hepworth, discusses his research interviewing Irish republican ex-prisoners. He outlines the background to his project, before analysing contested memories and identities among republican ex-combatants in ‘post-conflict’ Ireland.

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The Launch of The Newcastle Oral History Unit Podcast

As Graham Smith wrote last week, we have been devising ways to continue contributing to oral history theory and practise during the Covid-19 lockdown period. One long-term aim that we’ve been able to realise is a new oral history podcast. In this Lug post, Andy Clark talks about the process behind making the podcast and what listeners can expect to hear over the coming weeks and months.

You can listen to the podcast on the following hosting platforms: Spotify; Radio Public; Podbean; Pocket Casts. The RSS Feed for the pod is https://feed.podbean.com/nohuc/feed.xml

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Oral history and the current Covid-19 crisis

In this statement on behalf of the Oral History Collective, Graham Smith, Professor of Oral History at Newcastle outlines some of the challenges and possible responses that oral historians face during the COVID-19 crisis. He argues that oral historians need to go beyond the technical challenges of remote working and think about the political crisis arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, he warns against oral historians supporting stereotypical and dangerous attitudes to older people, and outlines the Collective’s local and international strategy.

Graham would like to thank Oral History Unit colleagues for their early input and Collective members who commented on the draft. Graham notes: ‘Any errors or mistakes are his alone’.

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Living Deltas Hub: UKRI and GCRF

The Oral History Collective is delighted to be associated with the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Living Deltas Hub. As part of a large, multi-disciplinary team, Professor Graham Smith and head of Newcastle University’s School of History, Professor Helen Berry, will lead a team of Research Associates and collaborative partners in history and oral history that will explore popular memories of environmental change across three of the world’s major delta regions. Here Graham reflects on just why the project is so exciting. 

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