OHA International Committee Vice-Chair Michael Kilburn will be attending the Czech Oral History Association (https://www.coha.cz/) in Brno February15/16, 2017. He will be giving a report from the road so watch this space.
As well, Michael will also be writing a review of ‘Velvet Revolutions. An Oral History of Czech Society’ by Miroslav Vaněk and Pavel Mücke. When available, we will post this review to our blog.
A Call for Papers Oral History and Emotions was posted today by the Journal of the International Oral History Association. The full call along with guidelines can be found at:
https://www.ioha.org/call-for-papers-oral-history-and-emotions/.
In recent years, issues related to the world of emotions have gained interest within academia. Even though the approaches to these matters may vary – starting with the different meanings of the terms “emotion” and “affect” in different languages – it could be argued that all of them share an interest in inquiring not so much about what emotions are, but what they do (Ahmed, 2007). Oral History has not been an exception, and many of its studies incorporate in their theoretical and methodological tools elements coming from this new field of study, developed from Social and Critical Theory (Harding, Bornat, Hamilton, Llona…).
The following call for papers is aimed at those academic studies that use emotions as an analytical tool and demonstrate, from specific testimonies, how emotions point our actions towards a particular direction and infuse with meaning our everyday experiences. We seek to elucidate whether it could be possible to define a period or historical event by its “mood” or atmosphere, capable of introducing social or cultural transformations, as well as to analyze which emotional/affective practices are possible and in which bodies or subjectivities they reside.
We are especially interested in:
-The way in which emotions in a social and political sense determine historical circumstances,– the relationship between emotions and memory, the way in which expectations, disappointments, trauma or any other kind of “affective event” configure our experiences and influence how we remember and narrate the past.
-The affective dynamic that is established between the interviewer and interviewee during Oral History interviews, and its effects upon the final result of the studies.
-The use of emotions and their commemorative purpose in memorials, performances, installations, etcetera.
-Any other aspect seeking to explore the relationship between Oral History and emotions.
