2024 Oral History Australia Biennial Conference

One of the world’s leading authorities on oral history, Alessandro Portelli, will be the keynote speaker at the next Oral History Australia Biennial Conference to be held in Melbourne, Australia from 21 to 24 November 2024.

The conference features the theme ‘The Power of Oral History—Risks, Rewards & Responsibilities’. A Call for Presentations is now available and proposals can be submitted up to the deadline of 1 April 2024.

Alessandro Portelli’s oral history career dates back to 1972 when he he founded the Circolo Gianni Bosio, an activist collective dedicated to studying folklore, oral history, and people’s culture.

He has served as Professor of American literature at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, as historical advisor to the mayor of Rome in the early 2000s, and as a founder of Rome’s House of History and Memory. His award-winning publications have transformed our understandings of memory, narrative and oral history, and about the relationships and politics of oral history, including: The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Form and Meaning in Oral History (1991), The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome (2003) and They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History (2010).

The biennial conference will be held at Trinity College on the campus of the University of Melbourne. It is being presented jointly by Oral History Victoria and Oral History Australia.

Go to the:

2024 conference website – https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/biennial-conference-2024/

Call for Presentations – https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/biennial-conference-2024-cfp/.