Friday, January 6, 2012

Examining Assumptions about OHA Meetings


The deadline for submissions for the Oral History Association Annual Meeting is rapidly approaching (Jan 20). If you’re not in OHA already, consider joining and/or coming to the meeting in Cleveland in 2012. OHA is a great group of people from all sorts of backgrounds, and we always look forward to these meetings, where we meet new folks and reunite with our oral history friends.
I plan to present a paper again and to support Melanie as she carries forward the torch of “So, What Do You Do?” (SWDYD). We introduced SWDYD at the OHA meeting in Louisville in 2010, as an alternative to the 90 minute sessions with 3-4 paper presentations followed by Q&A. SWDYD is focused on getting an overview of several people’s projects at once in a more casual setting, as opposed to “giving papers” (or reading them word for word!). Inspired by concepts like “Speed Dating”, “Pecha Kucha Nights”, and THATcamp’s “Dork Shorts”, we wanted to create something for OHA that would introduce a short-form, yet structured event that emphasizes getting participants into meaningful dialogue. The past two years we had a diverse group of presenters giving their 6-minute talks about what they do in oral history in the first session, followed by a set of round-table discussions in the second session. We are currently working on tweaks and upgrades for SWDYD for Cleveland 2012! Stay tuned for that…

No comments:

Post a Comment

Phone: 800-554-1047 - E-mail: info@randforce.com
Web Site Copyright © 2011 The Randforce Associates, LLC