The Ethics of Oral History (Virtual)

THIS PROGRAM IS A VIRTUAL-ONLY EVENT. REGISTER BELOW BY LEAVING YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO RECEIVE LOGIN AND CALL-IN INSTRUCTIONS (SENT TO YOU ONE DAY BEFORE THE PROGRAM). 

What is oral history? And what are the ethical principles that should guide one's work in the field? This lecture-style workshop will offer a brief overview of oral history, along with ethical guidelines, useful vocabulary, and the importance of deep listening. In this workshop, you will learn: ethical best practices that should inform your oral history project, how to practice deep listening in the interview setting, as well as both pre-interview and interview practices that help build rapport and center co-creation. This course will also provide models of intersectional interviewing that open dialogues of shared experience and examples of post-interview tasks that respect both the narrator and the audience.

Alissa Rae Funderburk is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Oral Historian for the Margaret Walker Center at the HBCU Jackson State University. She maintains an oral history archive that, like the Center, is dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of African American history and culture. She also serves as a council member of the Oral History Association and is the creator of the Black Oral Historians Network. Previously, she taught oral history at the Roger Lehecka Double Discovery Center and conducted freelance interviews for Jersey City. While completing the oral history masters program at Columbia University, Alissa Rae served as Deputy Director of the Columbia Life Histories Project alongside its co-founder Benji de la Piedra. Her masters thesis on the religious and spiritual experiences of Black men in New York City was a continuation of her undergraduate studies of race, culture, religion, and the African diaspora, as a John W. Kluge Scholar in the Columbia College class of 2012. For more visit alissaraefunderburk.com.