“Moving Stories”
October 2021 (Exact Dates To Be Determined)
The OHA’s Call for Proposals for the 2021 Annual Meeting is now closed.
We are writing to announce that the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Oral History Association will be virtual. Of course we mourn the opportunity to meet in person as a large group, to eat and drink and explore a new place together, but we are excited by the opportunity to plan a virtual meeting from the ground up.
Changing how we meet forces us to really think about what our meetings are for and how we structure them – we are not going to try to recreate the immersive intensity of an in-person conference, but make the most of the potential of meeting online. For example, while we all know that listening to someone read a paper in person can be less-than-engaging, on Zoom it can be even less so. We are offering a bunch of new interactive formats for sessions, from Birds of a Feather Caucuses where you can convene a conversation among attendees who share an identity or experience, to sessions for workshopping pre-circulated works in progress and satellite gatherings, where we invite you to host a socially-distanced in-person local meet-up to share a meal, take a walk, or watch a session together. We also expect that the conference may be spread over a longer period of time in October, exact dates TBD.
We anticipate that meeting virtually will make the gathering accessible to more people – we are investing in live captioning and interpretation, and hoping to welcome many newcomers who have been excluded from past meetings due to travel costs and other barriers.
We know that there may be people who can only now imagine participating in this gathering, knowing it will be virtual. For that reason we have extended the deadline on the Call for Proposals to April 1. You can find extensive instructions and tips on submitting here.
We want to hear your visions for the conference, and invite you to participate in making it happen. Here is a form to share ideas and concerns, which includes an opportunity to volunteer to join our organizing team.
So, please share this CFP widely – this is the perfect opportunity to invite friends, colleagues and neighbors into the OHA without asking them to buy a plane ticket!
Sincerely,
Amy Starecheski, OHA Vice President
Sara Sinclair and Nikki Yeboah, Program Committee Co-Chairs
PS – And we are now scheduled to meet in Cincinnati in 2024! It will 100% be worth the wait.
