Oral History

22 November 2024

A long time ago I quoted Alessandro Portelli in an article on ‘The therapeutic function of the commissioned historian – recently published in Circa – the journal of the Professional Historian’s Association.  Today I got to hear him speak with engaging eloquence in the keynote address to the Oral History Association biennial conference at Trinity College.  Amongst other things he demonstrated the power of the anecdote to demonstrate important methodolical insights, the important difference between ‘story’ and ‘testimony’, and the way these can vary depending on who is conducting the interview.  As always there was the conisderation of the way events become memory and acqire meaning for the individual and for the wider community, and the significance of what is not said – or with held - the silences.

The article noted above is Alessandro Portelli, ‘The Peculiarities of Oral History’, History Workshop Journal, Volume 12, Issue 1, Autumn 1981, Pages 96–107, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/12.1.96