European Social Sciences History Conference – 30 March – 2 April, 2016 – Valencia, Spain
This conference continued the high caliber of organization and paper content that has become the hallmark of this conference. Unofficial statistics for the Oral History Network reveal: 79 papers were accepted; 21 were rejected; 63 were published in the conference programme. This is similar to the number in Berlin 2004 with 68; Amsterdam in 2006 with 61; Lisbon in 2008 with 66 and Vienna in 2014 with 64.
Leslie McCartney presented a paper on the reuse of archival recordings done by scientists in the 1970s and 2000s along with current recordings of residents’ observations of sea ice changes in the Chukchi Sea, making the point that existing oral history recordings residing archives and as collected today are very useful for scientists and local residents to discuss a changing climate. All of the interviews and supplementary documentation are available on www.jukebox.uaf.edu/seaice.
Miroslav Vaněk presented there a his paper concluding general thoughts about developments of oral history on international ground, which were realized between two International Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS) Congresses, San Francisco 1975 and Jinan 2015. Pavel Mücke tried to present the first research outputs from recent project of Oral History Center, Institute for Contemporary History (Prague) aimed to the oral history and contemporary history of traveling and tourism in Czechoslovakia before 1989. Their impression from Valencia were generally positive, a congress was organized very well and on high standard as it became usual on ESSHC platform, however they reflected some changes and shifts in also very well organized Oral History Network. A longtime co-chair Graham Smith (U.K.) passed his position to newly elected member, Malin Thor Tureby (Sweden), which will be co-chairing a next network sessions on Belfast ESSHC 2018 congress with chairs on duty, Andrea Strutz (Austria) and Anne Heimo (Finland). Because of limited space for Oral History Network in conference program (around 60-65 presenters in maximum) and a consequent non-accepting of several proposals before ESSHC 2014 congress held in Vienna, a lot of participants applied their papers for Valencia to other networks, which caused a considerably radical change in auditoriums, now much younger (with many Ph.D. students) and with full of first time presenters.
On a whole, the conference was very positively was perceived and evaluated at an Social Event with refreshments, co-organized by Graham Smith and David Beorlegui (Spain), which was held in Terra-Centre Social Club and visited by the majority of Oral History Network participants.
Upcoming International Summer School of Oral History in Prauge – September 5 – 13, 2016
Instructors will include Rob Perks (UK), Alexander von Plato (Germany), David King Dunaway (USA), Monika Vrzgulová (Slovakia), Miroslav Vaněk (Czech Republic), Pavel Mücke (Czech Republic) and other teachers from our Department of Oral History – Contemporary History.
Registration due by April 30, 2016
For more information https://ohsd.fhs.cuni.cz/OHSD-70.html
International Scholarship Applications Now Open
Applications to the Oral History Association Annual Meeting Scholarships can be found at https://oralhistory.org/annual-meeting-scholarships/.
XIXth International Oral History Conference, June 27-July 1, 2016, Bangalore, India
If you are planning to attend this conference, the following website has details on the conference scheduled, scholarships, registration, visas, accommodation and more: https://iohaconference2016.org/.
