Oral historian and urban planner Ambar Wortham leads a sliding scale 3-hour interactive workshop on: the importance of preserving your own story and ensuring your life experiences are remembered for generations to come. Together, we will learn how self-preservation is as vital as the care you offer others, techniques to reflect on and organize […]
Category: Oral History
[learning opportunity] 2025 Oral History Summer Institute
Colleagues in the Columbia Center for Oral History Research welcome applications for the biannual 2025 Oral History Summer Institute. This year’s theme is Speaking Up for Democracy: Oral History and Political Change. The Summer Institute convenes for five days (July 14–18) with an additional workshop on hands-on techniques and implementation on Saturday, July 19, 2025. […]
An A-to-Z of Oral History | G is for (40% oral history collection on) gun violence in America, 2017-2020
An A-to-Z of Oral History at Columbia is a monthly posting featuring the people, events, and organizations in the Oral History Archive at Columbia’s collections, as well as behind-the-scenes info about oral history methodology. * This post is adapted from the catalog record description written by David Olson, OHAC archivist. Collection title: Forty […]
Exhibition Opening | I See My Light Shining
The Bishop Gallery, in collaboration with Incite Institute at Columbia University, is pleased to announce the opening of “I See My Light Shining,” an evocative exhibition inspired by Jacqueline Woodson’s oral history initiative of the same name. The exhibit opens on August 24th and will run through August 31st. “I See My Light […]
When is the “right” moment for collecting oral histories?
In the rush to document history, students, faculty, and staff clamored for there to be oral histories capturing this moment in Columbia’s history. How will student protest and University reactions be archived, preserved, memorialized, and used/misused for varied agendas and purposes? In consulting with oral history collection donors, interviewing narrators, designing oral history projects […]