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[RECORDING AVAILABLE] The Question: An Online Short Workshop on the Question as Invitation

  • Oral History Summer School 538 Washington Street Hudson, NY, 12534 United States (map)

Instructor: Suzanne Snider
Date: September 19, 6 PM - 8:30 PM ET

This event has now passed. If you are interested in purchasing video recording of this workshop, you may do so here:

Oral History Summer School’s tagline is ‘Ask Better Questions,’ but how do we do this and what makes a question “good” or “bad”? In this online focused workshop, we’ll explore questions as a cornerstone of oral history practice, specifically looking at how we can radically change relationships, archives, documentary film projects, parenting, medical practice and more by thinking about questions as “good invitations.” Participants will learn about how an oral historian frames questions and queries to support generative, ethical, authentically curious and productive collaboration. 

This workshop is for teachers, parents, radio producers, journalists, caregivers, health workers, family historians, therapists, artists, scholars, oral historians and more. No experience necessary.

All participants will receive the Zoom link via email the morning of September 19, prior to the workshop.

This workshop will be recorded. All participants will receive this recording within 2 days of the workshop. (Part of the workshop involves breakout rooms during an interactive exercise, which cannot be recorded; however, explanation and group debrief of the exercise will be included in the recording.)

Please note: Registration will close on Sunday, September 17.

[Please look below for more information about our tiered tuition for this workshop]

In this focused workshop, everyone will be introduced to the process we introduce in our longer oral history workshops, moving from closed questions more aligned with extractive interview practices to “good invitations,” which pave the way for collaboration and liberation.

Tuition:
Standard [Unlimited]: $77.25
Hand-up [Unlimited]: $51.50
Hardship [Limited number]: $0

*
A limited number of $50 spaces have been reserved for participants who are under-employed or work in under-resourced economies (education, social work, etc) need a hand-up at this time.
*A limited number of tuition-free spaces have been reserved for participants with reduced access to resources, money in particular, especially if they possess visibly marginalized identities. We ask that participants consider their ability to pay and place themselves in the appropriate tuition-tier
A video will be made available to all registered participants

Suzanne Snider (Founder/Director, Oral History Summer School 2012-) is a writer, documentarian, and educator whose work is deeply influenced by oral history theory and practice. Her most recent projects have taken the shape of sound installation, essays, and archive design. In 2012, she founded Oral History Summer School, an interdisciplinary training program in upstate New York. She consults frequently for institutions and project teams, collaborating with organizations including the National Public Housing Museum, MoMA, Center for Reproductive Rights, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Prison Public Memory Project. As an interviewer, she has worked for Columbia University's Center for Oral History Research, New York Academy of Medicine, HBO Productions, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. You can read more about OHSS’s collaborations, here. Her own oral history projects have addressed disappearing labor forces, rehabilitative medicine, parapsychology, and feminist presses (supported by the Radcliffe Institute/Schlesinger Library Oral History Grant). Her writing/audio work appear in The Guardian, The Believer, Legal Affairs, and The Washington Post, along with several anthologies and artist catalogs; she received a 2011 commission from Triple Canopy for New Media Reporting. Snider teaches at the New School, Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies and served as a visiting lecturer at Columbia University (OHMA) in spring 2014. Prior to her work with adult learners, she taught in the New York City public school system (pre-K through 6th), and developed arts curriculum for visually impaired students at the New York Institute for Special Education. With support from the Yaddo Corporation, the MacDowell Colony and the UCross Foundation Center, she is completing her first book, The Revival. She received an MFA in Writing from Columbia University and dual BA in Literature and Dance from Wesleyan University. She is currently studying Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy.