Event Host: East Asian Studies Center
Abstract: This workshop addresses oral history as both a source and methodology in the study of history and possibly some other disciplines. It treats oral accounts as a process of historical and literary construction that maps the interaction between the past and the present, and between the state and individuals. In other words, it sees individuals’ oral narratives as both historical sources and literary representations. This project refuses the view of treating oral history as an alternative or supplemental material to archival and published records. Rather, it takes oral history as a crucial source and methodology in applying critical approaches to the competing narratives of official and non-official history and to investigate the canonization of literary and performing works.
Mi Zhao is Associate Professor of History at Hunan University's Yuelu Academy, and a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University. She is an alumnus of Ohio State, receiving an M.A. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. She then went on to a Ph.D. in History at the University of Oregon, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan's Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. Her research focuses on the interplay of popular culture and politics in modern and early modern China. Particularly, it investigates the changing historiography in changing historical contexts such as the socialist transformation and the “post-socialist” periods.
This event is free and open to the public, however registration is required. For more information and to register click here.
