Dear oral history colleague/s
We – myself and Alexander Freund – seek your expert advice, and would like to share your suggestions about oral history writings with colleagues, as appropriate, through H-OralHist.
We have been contracted by Routledge to edit a fourth edition of The Oral History Reader, which was first published in 1998 (Rob Perks, who co-edited the first three editions with Alistair, has decided to take a more back seat role in the fourth edition, as a founding editor).
We are seeking your suggestions about oral history journal articles, or book chapters or extracts, published from 2015 on, that we might consider for inclusion in the fourth edition. We are looking for well-written pieces from the last decade that use oral history in original and imaginative ways, that include especially insightful reflections about aspects of oral history theory and method, and that would work for an international English-language readership that includes oral history students, researchers and practitioners.
You don’t need to tell us about articles in the major English language oral history journals (Oral History, Oral History Review, Oral History Forum, Studies in Oral History, and Words and Silences), or about chapters in the major oral history books series (Palgrave Macmillan, Oxford and Routledge) – as we’ll be reading everything in those book series and journal issues.
We are keen to include writings from across the oral world, and from the range of disciplines and practices that work with oral history. They might concern any aspect of oral history, though the publisher, and reader reports, urged us especially to include new writing about the following topics:
- Remote interviewing
- Audio and video interviewing
- Developing an oral history project
- New digital media formats (podcasting, soundscapes etc)
- ‘Shared authority’
- Oral history and artificial intelligence
We will probably use the same five-part structure for the Reader (Critical Developments, Interviewing, Interpreting Memories, Making Histories, and Advocacy and Empowerment) so ideally the writings will work within that scheme though they may of course work across different categories.
Please also let us know about appropriate, exceptional oral history writings that have been published in languages other than English (we don’t have a budget for translation, but AI now makes it easier to do quick and rough translations so we can consider such pieces).
Finally, if you have used earlier editions of the Reader for teaching or in other ways, we’d love to hear your thoughts about the chapters in previous editions that are indispensable, and about chapters you think should be replaced by new writings.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts through this group or, if you prefer, email privately to alistair.thomson@monash.edu and / or alexanderfreund9@gmail.com
With best wishes, Alex and Al
Publishing in the Archives Profession 