Indigenous Oral History & Anti-Colonial Oral Traditions
Course Description:
Through weekly readings, seminar discussions, and independent research, students will be immersed in the discourse, theoretical approaches, methods, and applications of Indigenous oral traditions and oral histories. Students will learn about the nature of oral traditions from multiple Indigenous perspectives; studying them as deeply grounded knowledge systems and world views connected to places and nations. The course will examine how colonialism has acted a great interrupter to the collective memory which is foundational to Indigenous oral traditions and nationhood. Finally, we will consider how contemporary anti-colonial Indigenous narratives are ‘remembering back’ by drawing upon and building from the stories that have (and have not) been passed down through the generations.
Roots & Branches of Oral History
Course Description:
Through weekly readings, seminar discussions, and independent research, students will be immersed in the discourse, theoretical approaches, methods, and applications of oral history. Students will study the nature of oral traditions as deeply grounded knowledge systems and world views connected to places and nations from multiple Indigenous perspectives. We will explore how these longer roots of oral history were displaced by the development of oral history as an academic field of study. And consider how contemporary approaches to the field are re-conceptualizing the subjective, embodied experience, so central to our work. We will explore the ethics that arise around the acts of interpretation that occur at all stages of our work. Finally, using indigenous models of oral history and colonialism as our model, we will consider how mass events like war, migration, immigration, can act as interruptions to the collective memory which define our sense of belonging to places and nations.
Upcoming Publications
Guest Editor, Oral History Review
Forthcoming, Fall 2026
Invited Talks
Select Workshops & Presentations
Public Training Workshop: Introduction to Indigenous Oral Tradition and Anti-colonial Oral Histories, Columbia University, Mar 2023
Panel: Oral, The Oral History Manuscript: Writing From Oral History, Oral History Summer School, Dec 2023
Amplifying Oral Histories of Resistance, Cooper Union, Feb 2022
Guest Presenter, Collective Memory, Colonialism and the Struggle to Know Who We Are, Bard, Apr 2021
Guest Professor, Applied Ethics, Haverford College, Apr 2021
Why We Need to Amplify Indigenous Voices, TEDx College Park, Mar 2021
Amplifying Oral Histories of Resistance, Oral History Master of Arts, Summer Workshop Series on
Anti-Oppression and Oral History, Columbia University, Aug 2020
Voices from How We Go Home, Universite de Pau et des Pays, Nov 2020
Empowering Youth Through Indigenous Stories, Columbia University, Nov 2020
Editing Oral History, Oral History Master of Arts, One-Day Oral History Training Workshops, Columbia University, May 2020
Guest Presenter, Indigenous History, Brooklyn College, Oct 2020
Say It Forward: Empathy & Ethics in Oral History, Oral History Association Workshop, Jan 2019
Interviewing Immersion, Oral History Master of Arts, One-Day Oral History Training Workshops, Columbia University, May 2019
Thinking Like An Oral Historian, Oral History Master of Arts, One-Day Oral History Training Workshops, Columbia University, Jan 2019
Guest Professor, Oral History: The Art of Listening and Translation, Princeton University, Sep 2019
Oral Historians: Honoring the Treaties We Make with our Indigenous Narrators, Oral History Association Roundtable, Jan 2018
Designing & Managing an Oral History Project. Oral History Master of Arts, One-Day Oral History Training Workshops, Columbia University, May 2018
Robert Rauschenberg Oral History: Oral & Art History Mash-up, with Mary Marshall Clark, OHMA Thursday Evening Series, Columbia University, Feb 2018
Cross Cultural Approaches to Interviewing, Activism and Research. Summer Institute: Oral History and Aging: Transmitting Life Stories of Being and Becoming Across Cultures and Generations., Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Jan 2017
Blanks, Blips or ? How to Handle Deletions in Oral History Audio Files? Roundtable, Oral History Association, Jan 2015
How We Go Home: Second Generation Memory and Education in Native American Communities. Summer Institute: “Second Generation Memories & Stories”, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Jan 2014
Oral History, Storyweaving & Documentary Theater.2013 Summer Institute: “Telling the World: Indigenous Memories, Rights and Narratives”, Columbia Center for Oral History Research, Jan 2013