HIST 4330--6920 Spring 2010 Kuhn[1] - Georgia State University

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ORAL HISTORY (HISTORY 4330/6920) – Spring 2010
Tuesdays, 5:30-8:50, 505 Classroom South
Instructor: Dr. Cliff Kuhn
Office: 34 Peachtree St., Suite 2142
Hours: Wednesday 10:00-12:00 or by appointment
Phone: 404-413-6363 E-mail: ckuhn@gsu.edu
The purpose of the course is to develop an appreciation of the field of oral history, its
evolution, methodological concerns, and applications. In addition, students will learn
about all facets of the oral history process, including interview preparation and research,
equipment, interview technique, the nature and character of evidence, transcribing and
editing, and legal and ethical concerns. A major component of the course will be a
project based on student field work on some aspect of the theme, “The South in
Transition.”
Texts: Valerie Yow, Recording Oral History, 2 nd edition; Robert Perks and Alistair
Thomson, eds., The Oral History Reader, 2 nd edition; Linda Shopes and Paula Hamilton,
eds., Oral History and Public Memories; additional reading assignments on ERES (class
password: mhm26ekfS); handouts
Assignments: 1) A written assessment (3-4 pp.) of an interview conducted by the student
2) A major project incorporating at least three hours of oral history
interviews on a subject pertaining to the student's research interests. This
project will entail: the development of a research plan; conducting the
interview(s); preparation of an interview index and partial transcript; and
an oral presentation and written essay (12-15 pages), both of which will
include treatment of the interviews in terms of content and process.
3) Class participation. Attendance is required and we will be discussing
the readings in each class. In addition, for each class two students will
help lead class discussion, and will prepare 5-10 discussion questions, to
be handed out in class.
In addition to the other assignments, graduate students in the course will be
required to do write a 5-6 pp. book review of a historical work drawing heavily upon oral
sources, after clearance by the instructor. Students will be judged on their ability to
assess the nature and value of oral evidence as used by the author, and to evaluate the
significance of that evidence to the author's thesis. For other assignments, graduate
students will be subject to higher standards than undergraduates.

Grades: Undergraduates Graduate students
Written assignment #1 10% Written assignment #1 10%
Research design 15% Research design 10%
Index and transcript 10% Index and transcript 10%
Oral presentation 20% Oral presentation 15%
Major paper 30% Major paper 30%
Class participation 15% Class participation 15%
Book review 10%
Papers will be graded for coherence (organization, punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc.)
as well as content. They will not be accepted after the due date!
Please turn off your cell phones!
Students are expected to conform to the Department of History’s guidelines concerning
plagiarism and the University Policy on Academic Honesty (Section 409).
An “A” grade equates to a 95, an “A-” to a 92, a “B+” to an 88, etc. An “A” reflects
outstanding work, a “B” above average, a “C” average, a “D” below average, and an “F”
unsatisfactory.
Note: This course syllabus provides a general plan for the course; deviations may be
necessary.

SCHEDULE
Jan 12 Introduction/history of oral history
Screening of Edward Ives, “An Oral Historian's Work”
Jan 19 What is special about oral history?
Yow, Ch. 1; Portelli, “What makes Oral History Different?” in Perks and
Thomson; Thomson, “The Past in the Present and the Present of the Past”
(electronic file); Linda Shopes, “Making Sense of Oral History,”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/
A case study: The slave narratives
James Davidson and Mark Lytle, “The View from the Bottom Rail: Oral
History and The Freedmen’s Point of View,” in After the Fact: The Art of
Historical Detection, 5 th edition, pp. 177-209; John Blassingame, Slave
Testimony, pp. xlii-lxiii, both on ERES; selected interviews in George
Rawick, ed., The American Slave:A Composite Biography, in stacks
Jan 26 Interview preparation and technique
Yow, Chs. 3-4; Introduction to Part II and “Studs Terkel, with Tony
Parker,” in Perks and Thomson
Bring recorders
Feb 2 The relationship between interviewer and narrator
Yow, Ch. 6; Yow, “‘Do I Like Them Too Much?’,” Bozzoli, “Interviewing the
Women of Phokeng,” both in Perks and Thomson; Van Boeschoten,
“Public Memory as an Arena for Contested Meanings,” in Shopes and
Hamilton; Karen Olson and Linda Shopes, “Crossing Boundaries, Building
Bridges: Doing Oral History Among Working-Class Men and Women, in
Daphne Patai and Sherna Berger Gluck, Women's Words, pp. 189-204 and
Alessandro Portelli, “Research as an Experiment in Equality,” in Portelli,
The Death of Luigi Trastulli, pp. 29-44 both on ERES
Feb 9 The Rural South
LuAnn Jones, “Voices of Southern Agricultural History,” in International
Annual of Oral History, 1990, pp. 135-44; Theodore Rosengarten, All
God’s Dangers, pp. xiii-xxiv, 3-57, both on ERES; Jones, “‘Mama Learned
Us to Work’: An Oral History of Virgie St. John Richmond,” in OHR 17
(Fall 1989), pp. 63-90, available through JSTOR.

Written assignment #1 due
Discussion/playback of interviews
Feb 16 Life in the Jim Crow South
Scott Ellsworth, “The Segregation of Memory” in Ellsworth, Death in a
Promised Land, pp. 98-107 (ERES); selections from “Remembering Jim
Crow” and “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow” web sites
Civil rights
Youth of the Rural Organizing and Cultural Center, Minds Stayed on
Freedom, pp. 1-34, 46-55, 117-130, 143-157; Charles M. Payne, “The Social
Construction of History,” in Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, pp. 413-
441 (ERES)
Playing and discussion of “Will the Circle be Unbroken” excerpts
Feb 23 Southern Politics
Clifford Kuhn, Harlon Joye and Bernard West, Living Atlanta: An Oral
History of the City, 1914-1948, pp. 311-49; Jennifer E. Brooks, “Winning
the Peace: Georgia Veterans and the Struggle to Define the Political Legacy
of World War II,” Journal of Southern History LXVI (August 2000), pp.
565-604; Alexander Heard, “Interviewing Southern Politicians,” American
Political Science Review, XLIV (December, 1950), pp. 886-892 (all on
ERES); Clifford Kuhn, “‘There's a Footnote to History’: Memory and the
History of Martin Luther King's October 1960 Arrest and Its Aftermath,”
Journal of American History 84 (Fall 1997), pp. 583-595; Ronald E.
Marcello, “Interviewing Contemporary Texas Legislators: An Atypical
Approach,” Public Historian, 7 (Fall 1985), pp. 53-64, both on JSTOR
Mar 2 History and Memory: a case study – war stories
Yow, Ch. 2; Intro to Part III, Allison, “Remembering a Vietnam War
Firefight,” Roseman, “Surviving Memory,” and Thomson, “Anzac
Memories,” all in Perks and Thomson; Dubrow, “Contested Places in
Public Memory,” Jefferson, “Interfaced Memory,” and Salvatici, “Public
Memory, Gender, and National Identity in Postwar Kosovo,” all in Shopes
and Hamilton
Research design due
Mar 9 Spring break
Mar 16 Legal and ethical issues

Yow, Ch. 5; Blee, “Evidence, Empathy and Ethics: Lessons from Oral
Histories of the Klan,” in Perks and Thomson; Linda Shopes, “Legal and
Ethical Issues in Oral History” (electronic file); selections from John
Neuenschwander, “Oral History and the Law”; Oral History Association
Evaluation Guidelines and Principles and Best Practices (available through
oralhistory.org)
Mar 23 After the interview: processing and transcription
Good, “Voice, Ear, and Text,” in Perks and Thomson; Michael Frisch,
“Preparing Interview Transcripts for Documentary Publication: A Line-by-
Line Illustration of the Editing Process,” in Frisch, A Shared Authority, pp.
81-146 (ERES); Yow, Ch. 11
After the interview: interpreting oral evidence
Yow, Ch. 10; Lummis, “Structure and Validity in Oral Evidence,” Borland,
“‘That’s Not What I Said’,” in Perks and Thomson; Neufeld, “Parks
Canada, the Commemoration of Canada, and Northern Aboriginal Oral
History,” in Shopes and Hamilton.
Index and transcript due
Mar 30 Oral history and family history
Yow, Ch. 9; Finnegan, “Family Myths,” in Perks and Thomson
Oral history and community history
Yow, Ch. 7; Shopes, “Oral History and the Study of Communities,” in Perks
and Thomson; Field, “Imagining Communities: Memory, Loss and
Resilience on Post-Apartheid South Africa,” and Blackburn, “History from
Above: The Use of Oral History in Shaping Collective Memory in
Singapore,” both in Shopes and Hamilton; Shopes, “Oral History and
Community Involvement: The Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project,”
in Benson, Brier and Rosenzweig, eds., Presenting the Past, pp. 249-266
(ERES)
Apr 6 Oral history and media: radio and film
David Dunaway, “Radio and the Public Use of Oral History,” in Dunaway
and Baum, Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, pp. 333-346
(ERES); Introduction to Part IV, Hardy, “Authoring in Sound,” and Kerr,

“We Know What the Problem is,” both in Perks and Thomson
Selections from “Living Atlanta” and other radio documentaries
Sipe, “The Future of Oral History and Moving Images,” in Perks and
Thomson
Selections from oral history-based films
Apr 13 Oral history and media: museums and digital media
Kuhn, “Oral History: Media, Message, and Meaning” (electronic file);
Green, “The Exhibition that Speaks for Itself” and Butler and Miller,
“Linked,” both in Perks and Thomson; Thomas, “Private Memory in a
Public Space” and Bozic-Vrbancic, “”Scars in the Ground,’” both in Shopes
and Hamilton
Michael Frisch, “Oral History and the Digital Revolution,” in Perks and
Thomson; Charles Hardy and Alessandro Portelli, “I Can Almost See the
Lights of Home,” Journal of Multi-Media History 2 (1999),

www.albany.edu/jmmh/
examples from oral history web sites
Graduate student book reviews due
Apr 20 Student presentations
Apr 27 Student presentations/final papers due