Cyprus Oral History Project: Seminar Notes
March 8, 2011
A wide-ranging group gathered in Nicosia for the first seminar in a series on doing oral history in Cyprus: a musicologist doing a study on folk-lore and songs, an environmentalist, an ethnographer who had just finished nine-months of field work in a mountain village, an historian who wanted to better understand the value of oral sources, an American teaching on a Fulbright, a computer teacher, teacher educator, graphic designer, and students from gender studies, sociology, education, and history. The mix was rich and hopeful.
Before introductions we began with a quick-write: five minutes on oral history, and reasons for taking this class. When we went around the circle and introduced ourselves, reading excerpts from the writing, it was immediately clear that there was a lot of wisdom in the room. People used words like “grass-roots history,” “history from
