HEARING VOICE IN ORAL HISTORY

Oral History Society Conference

... ... in association with the Scottish Oral History Group, Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, UHI Millennium Institute, Scottish Working Peoples’ History Trust, Aberdeen & Region Oral History Association

3-4 July 2009
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

This landmark event will provide the opportunity to explore that most essential aspect of oral history: Voice

Oral history is spoken history. The core evidence we gather is the voice, the core vehicle of the evidence we collect is the voice. Later, typically, summaries and transcripts appear, analyses are written, outcomes in various forms are produced. But at the start is the voice, the original vehicle for the transfer of evidence from human memory to the world. We have entered a period of great change in the technical nature of gathering, processing and archiving oral history, of archiving the voice. It is timely, therefore, for the OHS to bring a focus onto this essential aspect of the work we all do, to centre-stage the instrument and the notion of voice around which all our research, interviewing and technical expertise revolve, to look at what we are doing in terms of voice, voices, the voice. It is appropriate to examine in our oral history projects what information and evidence we are gathering as voice that might not be revealed in transcript and other forms of documentation.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Professor Steven High
Professor of Public History and Director of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, Concordia University, Montreal.

Anne Karpf
British writer, journalist, broadcaster and sociologist; author of the acclaimed The Human Voice: The Story of a Remarkable Talent.

Rab Wilson
Scots poet, recent holder of the Robert Burns Fellowship and winner of 2008 McCash Scots Poetry Competition. A former mining engineer and currently a psychiatric nurse.