Graduate Oral History Intensive

Four-day online course, 19-20 April and 3-4 May 2024, offered by Oral History Victoria.

Taught by Carla Pascoe Leahy, Sarah Rood and Alistair Thomson (for trainer profiles – see https://events.humanitix.com/graduate-oral-history-intensive)

Are you a PhD, Masters or Honours student, or a post-doc, about to start a research project using oral history – and need training to get you on the right track? Perhaps you’ve already started a graduate oral history project and want advice and support? You may be a historian, or you work in another social science or humanities discipline that uses life story interviews. This four-day, online training course could be just what you need.

In Autumn 2024, three of Australia’s leading oral historians, in partnership with Oral History Victoria, are pioneering an oral history intensive course aimed at university research students.We will teach you how to plan an oral history project and apply for ethics approval. You’ll learn how to create excellent interviews and document the recordings for use in research. We’ll explore approaches to analysing interviews and interpreting memories. And we’ll consider how to write a thesis using oral history as well as other types of oral history productions.

You will be active participants in the teaching and learning: reading a selection of key texts, bringing examples and issues from you own research, workshopping issues with the group, conducting practice interviews, discussing interview extracts from each participant, and developing a peer support group of graduate oral history researchers from around Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia. Each day school will be taught online via Zoom, from 9.30am-4pm Australian Eastern Standard time. The course will be limited to 18 participants.

Course outline

Day 1 Friday 19 April – Planning Your Oral History Project & Seeking Ethics Approval

Day 2 Saturday 20 April – Creating & Documenting Oral History Interviews

(fortnight break while participants conduct practice interviews)

Day 3 Friday 3 May – Interpreting Oral Histories

Day 4 Saturday 4 May – Making (Oral) Histories in Writing and other Media

Course fees:

$500 for Oral History Victoria and Oral History Australia members;

$750 non-members

We anticipate participants will draw on funds from their own or departmental graduate research budgets. For students without access to research funds, bursaries might be available from state and territory oral history associations.

Registration via https://events.humanitix.com/graduate-oral-history-intensive

Contact: for further information and to discuss the course, please contact: Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu