Oral History Australia

Have you always wanted to learn how to create an oral history interview? Or do you have an interest in recording the memories of elders in your family or community? Maybe you’re wondering whether or not to record remotely, or you’re thinking about conducting face-to-face interviews.

This popular Oral History Victoria two-day online training workshop is for anyone who would like to learn how to prepare, conduct, record and document an oral history interview. Facilitated by two of Australia’s most experienced oral history trainers, and using Zoom technology, you will learn and practice essential interview techniques and discuss important ethical issues.

After the first Saturday sessions, you will conduct your own oral history interview (remote recording or face-to-face), which will be a learning resource in the second Saturday sessions. The workshop will be limited to 16 participants to enable lively discussion and practical work in an online format. Participants will need a computer with wifi connection – the Zoom link will be provided, along with Zoom instructions.

Feedback from participants on this course 2020-2022

‘The skills I learnt and the discussions that took place were invaluable’

‘I liked it that our activities really tested our comfort zones. It was just terrific.’

‘Al and Sarah are wonderful educators and facilitators!

‘A wonderful learning experience. I’ve definitely fallen in love with oral history too!’

‘I loved the course – learned so much on so many different levels, far more than I would have expected in 8 hours. Well done on awesome Zoom teaching.’

‘Thanks so much for providing us with such a great course. I have already promoted future courses to my friends.’

Tickets

To purchase your ticket, visit our Humanitix listing…

Click Here to Purchase Tickets

Please note, tickets are made available to OHV members first, before being made more widely available from the 2nd of September 2024.

Trainer profiles

Sarah Rood is a professional consulting historian who has been working in the field for the past 20 years. She has seen the uses and applications of oral history change drastically. Motivated by a desire to help communicate the past and to help connect individuals and communities with history and identity Sarah has recorded countless oral history interviews. Firmly believing that everyone has a story to tell, Sarah aims to work with people to record their stories in a way that both documents their experiences and ensures that (with permission) it can be accessed by others in the future. Exploring the relationship between new technologies and oral histories has become a particular area of interest for Sarah in recent years. Similarly, the interplay between the tangible and the intangible and how this plays out in oral history is a constant source of intrigue for Sarah.

Alistair Thomson, national award-winning teacher and now Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University, taught his first oral history workshop in 1985 at the Wangaratta Centre for Continuing Education and has been teaching oral history in both community and academic settings ever since. Al is currently President of Oral History Australia. His oral history books include: Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), The Oral History Reader (2016), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011), Oral History and Photography (2011), and Australian Lives: An Intimate History (2017). Al is currently leading a research project about the history of fathering in Australia and co-editing The Bloomsbury Oral History Handbook. Contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu

Training program format

Timing: the workshop takes place over two consecutive Saturdays.

On each workshop day the session will go from 9.30am – 4 pm with a lunch break from 12 – 1.15 pm.

The annual meeting of the Oral History Association will be held from 30 October to 2 November 2024 in Cincinatti, Ohio, United States.

The annual meeting attracts a broad range of people and features the best work in the field. The meeting enables students and both emerging and established scholars to network and learn valuable skills. The theme for 2024 is Oral History: Bridging Past, Present, and Future.

The Call for Proposals is available at: https://oralhistory.org/2024-call-for-proposals/.  The Submission Portal will open in December 2023.

Find out more:

• Oral History Association website

The annual meeting of the Oral History Association will be held from 30 October to 2 November 2024 in Cincinatti, Ohio, United States.

The annual meeting attracts a broad range of people and features the best work in the field. The meeting enables students and both emerging and established scholars to network and learn valuable skills. The theme for 2024 is Oral History: Bridging Past, Present, and Future.

The Call for Proposals is available at: https://oralhistory.org/2024-call-for-proposals/.  The Submission Portal will open in December 2023.

Find out more:

• Oral History Association website

The National Oral History Association of New Zealand (NOHANZ) will hold its biennial conference from 15-17 November 2024 in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The theme of the conference is ‘Working Together’.

Abstracts should be submitted by 31 March 2024. Go to the Call for Papers.

Go to the NOHANZ website – https://www.oralhistory.org.nz/index.php/conferences-pastpresent/.

Oral History Australia and Oral History Victoria will present the 2024 OHA Biennial Conference in the the historic and culturally-rich city of Naarm/Melbourne.

About the conference

Our conference theme ‘The Power of Oral History—Risks, Rewards & Possibilities’ taps into the many powerful features of oral history practice including the potential to evoke powerful emotions, bring forth new voices and engage new audiences through multimedia.

Our conference welcomes participants who use oral history in their work across the many fields and disciplines that contribute to community, professional and academic histories. We welcome presenters from Victoria and around Australia, from across the Tasman and throughout the oral history world, from First Nations and culturally diverse backgrounds. We seek to showcase individual presentations, workshops, performances, roundtables, and thematic panels.

Keynote speaker

Our keynote speakers include the legendary Alessandro Portelli. Over more than 50 years, Alessandro  has been one of the most influential oral historians in the world. His keynote is titled ‘Bread and Labor: The Lost and Found Humanity of Giuseppe Di Porto, Auschswitz Survivor. A twice-told tale.’.

Find out more on our conference website – https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/biennial-conference-2024/.

The AHA Executive has advised the next annual AHA Conference will be held in Townsville from Monday 30 June to Thursday 3 July 2025. Please save the dates.

The AHA 2025 annual conference will chaired by Ben Jones (CQU) and Koen Stapelbroek (JCU).

The AHA Executive has advised the next annual AHA Conference will be held in Townsville from Monday 30 June to Thursday 3 July 2025. Please save the dates.

The AHA 2025 annual conference will chaired by Ben Jones (CQU) and Koen Stapelbroek (JCU).

The 23rd International Oral History Association (IOHA) Conference is scheduled for Kraków, Poland from 16-19 September 2025.

The theme of the conference is Re-Thinking Oral History.

Biennial conferences of the International Oral History Association (IOHA) allow for reviewing the global conditions and problems of oral history, regardless of the actual conference theme. This time, however, the organizers of the 23^rd IOHA Conference call on oral historians worldwide to consciously rethink the idea and practice of their discipline.

Oral history today faces both old and new challenges with long-lasting and unpredictable consequences: the crisis of liberal democracy, growing tensions in international politics, climate change with its devastating outcomes on human life, increasing inequalities, wars, and mass migrations. All of the foregoing not only affect the conditions in which oral history is made, but also compels us to rethink its very aim. For Central and Eastern Europe, the full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine beginning in February 2022 and its consequences are an especially painful reminder of that. Though oral history was, and still is a part of history, it has always been conscious of the responsibility (oral) history has for the current society. Aware of that mission, we encourage the global oral history community to return to the core questions of our practice: what kind of histories should we tell and pass on to the current and future generation

Find out more about the conference at: https://ioha2025.conference.pl/.

See the Call for Papers – https://ioha2025.conference.pl/en/call-for-papers. The deadline for proposal submissions was 31 August 2024.