WSU Vancouver to co-host annual conference

The annual conference of the national Oral History Association, co-hosted by Washington State University Vancouver, will be held Sept. 29 to Oct. 3 at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower Hotel in Portland, Ore.The theme of the five-day event is “Telling Stories,Narratives of Our Own Times.”

OHA gathers together academics, public historians, educators, personal historians and individuals involved in documenting the past through the voices of the present.

Featured speakers and events include acclaimed performer and educator Awele Makeba on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in a performance and workshop on the untaught history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Linda Tamura, author and educator, Friday (Oct. 1) luncheon speaker, considering historical amnesia; Saturday (Oct. 2) evening keynote speaker Michael Honey, labor historian and activist, addressing the importance of working class history and the importance of workers’ memory; and Alessandro Portelli, whose most recent
book, “The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre In Rome,” is the focus of a plenary session with noted scholars in history and memory studies.

Numerous individual presentations focus on the history of Portland (Ore.) and the Pacific Northwest. A number of sessions are devoted to the racial and ethnic communities of the Northwest, the unique history of Oregon and the history of the region’s native peoples.

The conference also includes local and regional tours and workshops focused
on conducting,writing, preserving and understanding oral history and its role in a digital and litigious age. For more information about the full conference schedule and registration fees, visit the Oral History Association Web site at http://omega.dickinson.edu/organizations/oha/.

WSU Vancouver offers 15 bachelor’s degrees and eight master’s degrees in 35
fields of study. The campus is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave., east of the 134th Street exit from either I-5 or I-205.