Call for Papers: Invited Volume on Oral History in Post-Socialist Societies
Prairie Centre for
the Ukrainian Heritage
Ukrainian Association of
Oral History
Kowalsky Institute for
the Ukrainian Studies
Call for Papers:
Invited Volume on Oral History in Post-Socialist Societies
"Reclaiming the Personal:
Oral History in Post-Socialist Scholarship"
One of the fundamental differences between traditional historic methods applied to the study of sociocultural phenomena and the oral historical method is the sustained interest of the latter in the person and personal experiences of the past. In the West where oral history emerged and established itself as a scholarly discipline such emphasis on individual and on personal is not accidental. The centrality of the individual to Western way of life has long been recognized and acknowledged to be one of the foundational organizing principles of the Western civilization. On the other end, in humanities and social sciences of former socialist societies, the interest in personal experiences of the past and in the individual as an agent of history began to emerge only recently and is a relatively novel academic phenomenon. This is not unexpected, as institutionalized scholarship and academic discourse in these societies have been for a long time dominated by the collectivistic stance in historical research imposed upon scholars by the ruling socialist ideology of a time.
Throughout the last two decades of post-socialism, how the shift in focus in the study of history - from collective to individual experiences of history, from institutional to experiential aspects of the past - has been experienced in the humanities and social sciences of post-socialist societies? What role has oral history been playing in emerging reinterpretations of history and their attempts to reclaim the individual and his/her agency from the collectivistic past?
The proposed Invited Volume on Oral History in Post-Socialist Societies focuses on the above question. Contributions are invited from scholars in various areas of humanities and social sciences whose work utilizes the oral historical method and directly speaks to the main focus of the proposed collection - "Reclaiming the Personal: Oral History in Post-Socialist Scholarship." The prospective contributors are invited to submit their initial proposals (500 words) to the editors by February 1, 2010.
All correspondence should be directed to:
Info.uoha@gmail.com (attention to Dr. Gelinada Grinchenko, Karazin Kharkiv National University)
natalia.khanenkofriesen@gmail.com (Dr. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, STM College, U of Saskatchewan)
The editorial committee will be happy to address further questions.
