The Talk About Town: Urban Lives and Oral Sources in 20th Century Australia
Conference 27-28 August 2009
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The Talk about Town offers a rich and stimulating conference program, to be hosted by the State Library of Victoria and the Melbourne Museum, on 27-28 August 2009.
The Talk about Town: Urban Lives and Oral Sources in Twentieth Century Australia will bring together researchers and professionals working on life in Australian cities since 1900 to discuss their projects and their approaches to addressing the past. It hopes to encourage participants to think about the significance of the urban context, whether or not it is the primary focus of their research. In particular, researchers working with personal sources in fields such as oral history, life history and immigration, are encouraged to look at the way that urban settings have shaped the stories they are telling.
The Conference will feature over 40 presentations by historians from around Australia, keynote addresses by Alessandro Portelli and Janet McCalman and workshops offering participants the opportunity to engage with leading practitioners on a range of topics.
Following the conference, participants are encouraged to submit articles based on their conference presentations to the Committee for consideration of inclusion in a special issue of History Australia.
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Workshops
A set of three workshops will be held on 28 August 2009, addressing some of the key issues between oral and urban history under the headings 'Collecting', 'Interpreting' and 'Making' histories. Led by experts in urban and oral history, the presenters will discuss their experience and practice before opening up general discussions of ideas and methodologies around each theme. See the Workshops page for details of the participants.Keynote Speakers
The Committee is delighted to welcome two distinguished oral and urban historians as keynote speakers.Alessandro Portelli, Professor of American literature at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza', is the author of a number of influential studies in oral history and popular memory including The Order Has Already Been Carried Out: History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome and The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Form and Meaning in Oral History. From 2002 to 2008, he served as advisor to the Mayor of Rome for the preservation and promotion of the city’s historical memory, and is currently co-manager of Rome's House of History and Memory.
Alessandro Portelli will also be doing 'In Conversation with... ' a seminar series with Alistair Thomson and Paula Hamilton. Please see IPH Seminar Series for more information.
Professor Janet McCalman is perhaps the most prominent Australian historian to have worked between urban and oral history. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Struggletown, her landmark history of the working class Melbourne suburb of Richmond. Struggletown blended these two approaches to the past, telling the history of a generation and a place. Professor McCalman holds joint appointments in the History & Philosophy of Science and in the Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne, as Director of the Johnstone-Need Medical History Unit.
Enquiries
For enquiries about presentations, please contact the Organising Committee via talkabouttown@gmail.comFor registration and administration enquiries, please contact Kerrie Alexander on Kerrie.Alexander@arts.monash.edu.au