Incorporating the Overlooked: Oral History in Teaching and Research

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Drawing upon the Jewish Women’s Archive’s new Tanner Oral History Collection as a case study, this session explores how students, scholars, and teachers can use oral history to incorporate stories of marginalized or under-represented populations into their work.

Oral history is a powerful source for the study of those who left few or no written records. JWA has collected hundreds of interviews, documenting Jewish women’s encounters with major events and movements of the 20th and 21st centuries and the ways that gender, class, place, and religious and ethnic identities shaped their lives. We have assembled a diverse array of scholars well equipped to present and explore together the potential of oral history as a tool for research, teaching, and innovative collaboration.

Discussants will address questions including:

How can oral histories be used to illuminate broader themes in Jewish and women’s history?

How can scholars and teachers take an intersectional approach, using the Tanner Collection to explore the experiences of groups often overlooked even within Jewish women’s history?

How can educators encourage students to engage with newly accessible nontraditional sources?

What do students learn from oral histories about sources, narrative, and conducting their own interviews?

Moderator:

Karla Goldman (University of Michigan) has considerable experience with oral history, from her work on JWA’s Katrina’s Jewish Voices oral history project and guiding her students through conducting their own oral histories.

Discussants:

Lauren Strauss (American University) will focus on themes of race and civil rights, highlighting women like Susan Maze-Rothstein, a biracial Jewish woman whose childhood experiences of injustice led her to work for a more just world.

Jillian Hinderliter (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) will discuss her experience using the Tanner Collection oral histories in the final assignment for her American Jewish women’s history course.

Hannah Zaves-Greene (Sarah Lawrence College) will discuss issues of disability and disability rights activism as reflected in the Tanner oral histories.

Max Modiano Daniel (College of Charleston) will focus on the stories of Sephardic women in JWA’s Weaving Women’s Words Seattle project.

Chloe Yale Pinto (Northeastern University London) will discuss themes of anti-Semitism in the Tanner oral histories.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in the Americas

Moderator

• Karla Goldman, University of Michigan

Discussants

• Lauren Strauss, American University

• Jillian Hinderliter, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Max Daniel, College of Charleston, South Carolina

• Chloe Pinto, Northeastern University London

• Hannah Zaves-Greene, University of Pennsylvania

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 10