OHA 2021: 2021 Biennial Conference of Oral History Australia - 'Oral History In Troubling Times : Opportunities and Challenges' The Tramsheds Function Centre Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, October 14-16, 2021 |
Conference website | https://www.oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/oha-biennial-conference.html |
Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=oha2021 |
Abstract registration deadline | April 1, 2021 |
Submission deadline | April 6, 2021 |
ORAL HISTORY IN TROUBLING TIMES: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
2021 Biennial Conference of Oral History Australia
Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
14–16 October 2021
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
With drought, bushfire, and floods, and now the pandemic, these have been desperately troubling times for all of us. They are also troubling times for oral historians wondering if and how to continue our work. Oral History Australia plans to meet in solidarity and optimism for our biennial conference in Tasmania in 2021 – but if that proves to be impossible, we will run our conference online.
Our conference theme invites you to reflect on the challenges and issues of undertaking oral history in troubling times, and to consider how oral history can illuminate the lived experience of troubling times both in the past and in our contemporary world. Through oral history recordings, we hear the intimate stories of everyday lives, and we create histories that challenge orthodoxy and speak truth to power. Oral history drills beneath the big histories of state, society, and politics. It illuminates ordinary people’s extraordinary lives and the ways in which people deal with the troubles of their lives and of our world.
Oral History Tasmania and Oral History Australia, in partnership with the College of Arts, Law and Education at the University of Tasmania and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, welcome proposals for our 2021 biennial conference in the island jewel of Tasmania. Oral historians, in a variety of guises and combining age-old listening skills with dazzling new technologies, record intimate stories and create challenging histories. Our conference welcomes participants who use oral history in their work across the many fields and disciplines that contribute to community, professional and academic histories. We welcome presenters from Tasmania and across Australia, and from across the Tasman and around the world. We invite proposals for individual presentations, workshops, performances, and thematic panels.
The main conference at the Tramsheds Function Centre, Launceston, will be on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th October 2021. On Thursday 14th October, there will be oral history training workshops, and a selection of history walks and tours will introduce participants to the region’s rich and diverse communities of memory. Plenary panels will focus on Oral History in Troubling Times and on Oral History in Tasmania. Keynote speakers to be confirmed.
Conference sub-themes
Conference sub-themes may include, but are not limited to:
- Recording Oral Histories during the Pandemic
- Doing Oral History in Troubling Times
- New Approaches to Recording Lives
- New Technologies for Documenting and Archiving Oral Histories
- Interpreting Memories
- Making Histories in Old and New Media
- Performing Oral History
- Using Oral History in Creative Writing
- Ethical Issues in Oral History
- Training the Oral Historians of the Future
- Indigenous Oral Histories and Oral Traditions
- Migrants, Refugees and Ethnic Community Histories
- Gender, Women’s History, Men’s History
- Family History and Memory
- Histories of Sex and Sexuality
- Leisure and Pleasure
- Histories of Protest and Activism
- Memory Work for Human Rights
- Contested Memories and Histories
- Working Lives and Social Class
- Sensory Memory and History
- Place, Community, Memory
- War Stories and War Histories
- Memory, Violence and Catastrophe
Requirements
We welcome proposals for presentations in a variety of formats and media, including standard paper presentations (typically 20 minutes); short ‘lightning’ accounts of work in progress (typically 5 minutes); participatory workshops; performances; thematic panels comprising several presenters; and poster presentations. Presentations should involve oral history.
Contact the Chair of the Conference Program Committee, Professor Alistair Thomson, (Alistair.Thomson@monash.edu) if you would like to discuss the format or focus of your presentation before you submit it.
Presenters will be encouraged to submit papers to the refereed, online Oral History Australia journal, Studies in Oral History, whose editors aim to produce a themed issue about ‘Oral History in Troubling Times’ in 2022.
Proposals for presentations / papers / panels / posters should be no more than 200 words (single space, 12 point font in Times New Roman) and must include at the top of the page, your name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), postal address, phone number and email address, the title for your presentation/panel, the sub-theme/s your work best connects to, and the presentation format (standard 20 minute paper; 5 minute ‘lightning’ account of work in progress; thematic panel; performance; participatory workshop; or poster presentation).
Submission
Proposals should be uploaded to EasyChair via this link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=oha2021
To use this online conference management system, you will need to create an author account (a simple process) and then submit your proposal by uploading it to the system as a PDF document (with full details as listed above).
Please follow the instructions provided on the OHA site if you are unfamiliar with EasyChair.
If you are unable to use this system, please email your proposal as a PDF attachment to Dr Annmarie Reid: ohatassie2021@gmail.com
CLOSING DATE FOR PROPOSALS EXTENDED: 1 April, 2021
For further information
For conference information or to join the conference mailing list, email our Oral History Tasmania host Jill Cassidy (president@oralhistorytas.org.au) or go to the conference website via the existing OHA site
Our introductory keynote speaker is Mark Cave, Past President of the International Oral History Association, Senior Curator at The Historic New Orleans Collection, and co-editor of Listening on the Edge: Oral History in the Aftermath of Crisis (2014). Mark’s keynote is titled ‘Why Did This Happen? Making Meaningful Answers in the Aftermath of Crisis’. Mark will explore the limitations of the media in the aftermath of crisis and argue that oral history has an important role to play alongside journalism in creating explanations that not only help communities move beyond crisis but help them move beyond crisis in ways that make them stronger.