Oral History - HIST602

Instructors: Dr Andrew Redden and Dan Warner

This will be an interactive day-long workshop in which participants will engage with the theoretical, practical and ethical challenges associated with oral history research. The workshop will consist of a number of introductory talks about themes, group exercises and discussions as well as feedback sessions between participants and the two facilitators.

Drawing on their most recent oral-history research in Liverpool and El Salvador, as well as the respective experience and intentions of the workshop participants, the workshop will cover the following themes:

  • An introductory history of oral history
  • Theory: a) Accuracy and Representativeness
  • Theory: b) Narrative, Performance and the Self
  • Practice: a) Interview Process and Technique
  • Practice: b) Ethics

Over the course of the workshop participants will obtain a broad, yet in-depth understanding of the theory of oral history together with an understanding of how oral histories are constructed and affected by both interviewee and interviewer.

You will gain a working knowledge of how you might obtain historical data through interviews, the problems that this might entail, and how these problems might be overcome, alongside an in-depth consideration of the related ethical issues. Above all else, the workshop will provide participants with a firm sense of how oral history might be applied as a core research methodology.

Thursday 9th November 2017, 9.00am-5.00pm

Venue: Seminar Room 2, Life Sciences Building

To register for HIST602, go to the University of Liverpool online shop here.

A limited number of places will be available FOC to NWSSDTP students (from the universities of Liverpool, Manchester, Lancaster and Keele). All other registrations will require a fee of £50.00.