Oral History Summer School
This immersive summer school serves as a rigorous introduction to the field of Oral History, in the beautiful Hudson Valley.
Oral History Summer School was established in Hudson, New York in 2012 to train an international group of writers, social workers, radio producers, artists, teachers, human rights workers, and undecided’s to make use of Oral History in their documentary and artistic practices.
Beginning in 2013, additional, specialized workshops will be offered for the continuing oral historian or those interested in advanced issues in the field.
Founder/Director: Suzanne Snider
Visiting Instructors (Past/Present)
Laura Checkoway (Filmmaker/Journalist)
Eugenie Mukeshimana (Genocide Survivors Support Network)
Michael Garofalo (Storycorps)
Sara Kendall (Kite’s Nest, WGXC)
Sarah Kramer (New York Times)
Sady Sullivan (Brooklyn Historical Society)
Find us on Facebook!: https://www.facebook.com/OralHistorySummerSchool
WORKSHOP: Oral History Intensive 2013, June 3-10
Oral History Intensive
Suzanne Snider
June 3-10, 2013
Class size: 18
Fee: $825
Come all ye budding oral historians, radio documentarians, writers, filmmakers, media advocates, and photographers who wish to make of use of oral history in your practices. This immersive summer workshop is a rigorous introduction to the field of Oral History. Over the course of eight days, we will cover interview techniques, project design, recording tutorials, archival practices, and ethics, along with special topics related to the field. This is a great opportunity to jump-start a project in a supportive environment, or to get this training under your belt for future projects with the benefit of deadlines and critique. Participants will be conducting interviews throughout the week. No experience necessary.
* Please note: two full scholarships will be offered to area residents who want to take part in the Oral History Intensive
WORKSHOP: Building an Oral History Archive, June 11 & 12
Instructor: Sady Sullivan
June 11 & 12
Class size: 20
Fee: $240
Long-term preservation plans are an integral part of collecting oral histories. Even if you have plans for present-day use, people 100 years from now want to hear your interviews. In this two-day workshop, Sady Sullivan will guide us in the art and science of building an oral history archive. She will discuss best practices––storage, processing, stabilization, the importance of metadata––as well as how (and when) to make inquiries at existing repositories where we hope to house our projects. We will also go over available (open source and affordable) digital tools. Stepping back from the conventions of the field, we will explore what kinds of alternative archival models exist or might we invent.
We will have the chance to apply what we learn by working with the OHSS collection and your own interviews, walking though archival challenges and outlining key policies for the OHSS archive, such as how visitors will browse, search, and listen to the collections. Who should have access to the archive? Is the library the best place for it? What kind of guidelines will be given to journalists to ensure our narrators’ stories are not manipulated or misconstrued? By the end of the workshop, you’ll be able to show off your archive-literacy, using words like LOCKSS and Drupal.
This workshop is appropriate for teachers, activists, family historians, artists, would-be archivists and others who wish to preserve their interviews.
Note: For short courses, enrollment preference will be given to alums of the Oral History Intensive (2012, 2013) and then filled as space allows.
WORKSHOP: Oral History and the Documentary Film, June 12
Instructor: Laura Checkoway
June 12
Class size: 15
Fee: $225
In this one-day intensive, filmmaker Laura Checkoway will discuss how she makes use of oral history in her documentary work. We’ll discuss camera angles, equipment choices, setup, ethical issues, release forms, and the strengths/limitations of video as a medium. What kinds of compromises are necessary when it comes to editing “footage” (interviews) that we have come to appreciate, uncut? How does the camera’s presence and position affect an oral history—for the interviewer, interviewee and for the audience? This workshop combines conversation and demonstrations with hands-on exercises. Students will have the chance to apply the concepts discussed by filming an oral history during the course of the day. No camera experience necessary.
This workshop is appropriate for aspiring filmmakers, archivists, community historians, exhibit designers, public historians, artists, family historians, and bloggers, among others.
Note: For short courses, enrollment preference will be given to alums of the Oral History Intensive (2012, 2013) and then filled as space allows.
WORKSHOP: Interviewing Survivors of Complex Trauma, June 13
Instructor: Eugenie Mukeshimana
Class size: 20
Fee: $225
Participants will explore the complex nature of trauma and how it affects the shape and experience of survivors’ narratives. How might such narratives serve as testimony, documentation, persuasive media, intervention, or as an opportunity for the narrator to integrate an experience of trauma into his/her larger life history?
Eugenie Mukeshimana, founder of the Genocide Survivors Support Network, will use role-playing exercises to help interviewers understand the survivors’ perspective during interview sessions. Workshop participants will learn specific techniques to help the narrator tell his/her story throughout the interview. We will also develop tools to establish rapport, to emotionally support the narrator when needed, to control our own emotions during the interview session when faced with stories of cumulative and collective trauma, and to help the narrator deal with the post-interview emotions.
Although the course deals with a challenging topic, participants can expect to have fun throughout the day, with interactive role-playing games and group work. There will be time for reflection on the day’s exercises and conversations, as well as related readings.
The day-long workshop will conclude with an evening public talk by Eugenie, when she will discuss stories that go unreported by journalists but hold significance to survivors, as well as how survivors talk about genocide among themselves.
WORKSHOP: Oral History and Radio, June 14-17
Instructor: Michael Garofalo
June 14-17
Class size: 12
Fee: $525
For those interested in bringing your oral histories to the airwaves, this four-day intensive workshop covers the fundamentals of radio storytelling, focusing primarily on the editing process that occurs after you have collected your interviews. Students will learn how to conceptualize and develop a story for radio, as well as how to edit and assemble interview tape and incorporate additional sound, such as music, to really make a story sing. We will listen to a range of storytelling styles and find the right form for the story you want to tell.
The workshop will include one-on-one editorial sessions as well as group listening and feedback sessions. Depending on experience and facility with editing software, some students may expect to finish their radio piece by the end of the workshop. All students, however, will leave the workshop with the skills and editorial direction to finish their piece independently. Note: Experience with audio or video editing software is highly recommended, but not required. We will be providing instruction on software, but students enrolling in this workshop should possess a high degree of competence and comfort with computers. Students will have the chance to share their documentaries-in-progress on Columbia & Greene Counties’ community radio station, WGXC.
This workshop is appropriate for would-be radio producers, podcasters, bloggers, filmmakers, audiophiles, and writers, among others.
Equipment: laptop and headphones required. You should plan to have an editing program loaded onto your laptop. Editing software information will be sent out before the workshop (including free options).
Note: For short courses, enrollment preference will be given to alums of the Oral History Intensive (2012, 2013) and then filled as space allows.
OHSS ‘13 Instructors
Suzanne Snider (Founder, Director, Instructor, Oral History Intensive) is a writer and oral historian. She has worked as an interviewer or consultant for Columbia University’s Center for Oral History, MoMA, Center for Reproductive Rights, the New York Academy of Medicine, HBO Productions, the Newtown Creek Community Health and Harms Narrative Project, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Prison Public Memory Project, among others. Her own oral history projects have addressed disappearing labor forces, rehabilitative medicine, parapsychology, and feminist presses. She serves on the Judd Foundation’s Oral History Advisory Board and chairs the Stetson Kennedy Vox Populi Award Committee. Her work––published in The Washington Post, The Guardian, Legal Affairs, Guernica, The Believer, and several artist books––has been supported through fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Sloan Foundation, the UCross Foundation Center, and the Radcliffe Institute. She received a 2011 commission from Triple Canopy for New Media Reporting. She teaches Writing, Documentary and Oral History courses at the New School University and is currently completing a book about a divided commune in Middle America.
Eugenie Mukeshimana (Instructor, Interviewing Survivors of Complex Trauma) is the Founder and Executive Director of Genocide Survivors Support Network (GSSN), a NJ-based nonprofit organization that serves immigrant genocide survivors in America. As one of the leading voices among survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she frequently presents on genocide and war topics and travels around the country to speak about her experiences during the genocide. In an effort to gain a better understanding of current and future challenges of living with the memories of the genocide, Eugenie began to conduct filmed interviews with Holocaust survivors about their post-holocaust experiences.
Eugenie helps survivors to open up and tell their stories often for the first time and sometimes before total strangers. She also helps them manage the post-disclosure range of emotions. Her work with refugees as a freelance telephonic language and cultural interpreter for leading language service companies helped her uncover serious communication challenges faced by refugees and service providers across the country and has contributed a chapter in Children and Families Affected by Armed Conflicts in Africa: Implications and Strategies for Helping Professionals in the United States. NASW Press 2012.
Eugenie holds a Bachelor’s in Social Work from the College of St. Rose in Albany, NY. She was a 2012 Human Rights Advocate Program fellow at Columbia University. She is a mother of one daughter born during the genocide and lives in South Orange, NJ.
Sady Sullivan (Instructor, Build it and They Will Come: Building an Oral History Archive) is Director of Oral History at the Brooklyn Historical Society and co-director of Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations. Her interview technique demonstrates a merging of feminist methodology and Buddhist deep listening. Since joining BHS in 2006, she has led eight oral history projects and conducted life history interviews with over 200 people. In addition, she manages the preservation of BHS’s legacy oral histories, 12 projects dating back to 1973, many of which are newly digitized and accessible for listening. Sady is interested in how oral history can empower individual agency in the present, while documenting complex social history and concepts of identity for future generations. She is glad that Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations opens up space for racial justice dialogues in Brooklyn. She presents frequently on the subject of oral history, particularly issues surrounding accessibility, to history students, teachers, and archivists at schools and conferences, and she teaches an oral history seminar at the Brooklyn Historical Society and workshops for community oral historians embarking on their own projects. She received a Master’s in Cultural Reporting & Criticism from NYU and a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Women’s Studies from Wellesley College.
Laura Checkoway (Instructor, Oral History and the Documentary Film) has penned revealing celebrity profiles and investigative features for numerous publications and is the former senior editor of Vibe magazine. Her first book, My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2011 and shortlisted as one of the best music books of the year by NPR. In 2011, she directed and produced a series of documentary segments for PBS World. Currently, she’s producing video content for Google and Toyota/Scion. Her first feature length documentary, Lucky, is in post-production.
Meral Agish (Technical Assistant) works as an independent oral historian and as a fundraiser, event planner and grant writer for the Drug Policy Alliance, Sandy Storylines, and other nonprofit organizations. She is a graduate of Yale University and recently completed the certificate program at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, where she worked on oral history projects with Vietnam veterans, long-married couples, and former residents of Durham’s demolished Hayti district. In 2013, Meral will travel to China and Japan to produce a multimedia documentary about the Tatar diaspora in the Communist era.
Michael Garofalo (Instructor, Oral History and Radio) is senior producer for the national oral history project StoryCorps. A member of the two-time Peabody Award-winning production team (2006 & 2011), Michael has had a hand in creating nearly all of the project’s content — from producing StoryCorps’ weekly national broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and hosting the podcast, to contributing to the first StoryCorps book, to co-producing a series of Emmy-nominated animated shorts for PBS’s POV. He has trained producers in both the US and in the UK for BBC Radio 4. In 2010, Michael launched a podcast for the respected online film journal, Reverse Shot. Michael also makes music using radios — among other things — and is a Transmission Artist with the nonprofit arts organization free103point9. In 2012, Michael was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
Karen Gardner (Assistant) is an aspiring writer. Her work thus far explores new analyses of microeconomic development theory, including critiques within labor economics, urban economics, and community-based development. Her work has included an interview-based project in the Ilam region of eastern Nepal analyzing the power dynamics involved in a tea factory’s conversion to organic production. A subsequent project analyzes USAID’s agricultural technology interventions in Nepal. Aside from writing, she is also an aspiring farmer, baker, and marathon runner. She received her Bachelor’s in Economics at Bard College.
Guest Instructors:
Housing is a Human Right (Rachel Falcone, Michael Premo) is a creative storytelling project that aims to help connect diverse communities around housing, land, and the dignity of a place to call home. We create a space for people to share stories of their community and ongoing experiences trying to obtain or maintain a place to call Home. We are building a collection of intimate, viscerally honest narratives exploring the complex fabric of community and the human right to housing and land, painting a living portrait of human rights.
Stories are recorded in sound in the tradition of oral history and shared as audio stories, photographs and multimedia across multiple platforms-including interactive exhibitions in unconventional spaces & broadcasts via traditional and new media outlets.
Materials
A large workshop packet will be provided, electronically, before your arrival in Hudson.
You should plan to bring a laptop to the workshop, for uploading audio and for listening to your peers’ audio. Please contact us, if this is not possible.
Although it is recommended that you bring something with which you can record, it is not required. Recording equipment can be shared and borrowed. If you are interested in purchasing equipment, we will be sending information out about a range of affordable recording kits.
Questions
Please contact us at oralhistorysummerschool [at] gmail.com for more information
