Questions and challenges you're facing writing an oral history narrative

To start class today, please post any questions you have about the next phase of our oral history project. That is, I'd like to know what you think will be challenging for your as a writer as you move from transcribing the interview to writing the narrative profile of your interviewee's experience. What seems difficult right now? What questions do you have? What can I do to help you navigate this process?

Weekly Blog from Sean and Emily

Since almost everyone has conducted at least one of their interviews, Emily and I thought it would be beneficial to share with each other our experiences. How did the interview process go overall? What was your strategy/approach to conducting the interview? Did you rely on a structured process or a spontaneous one? What were the advantage/disadvantages of the way you conducted your interview? Was there anything you wish you could have done differently? Overall, did you enjoy this experience or not?

Sean: I enjoyed both my interviews a lot. I thought the people Matt and I interviewed live extremely interesting and enjoyable lives. Matt and I chose to take a more spontaneous approach to our interviews where we followed the topics that were brought up through our conversation. We used the question sheet as a guide and only referred to it when there was no direction to the current conversation. I think this worked out well because the interviewees felt like they were actually having a conversation as opposed to being asked just questions. This helped create rapport and made them feel more comfortable. There were a few questions that Matt and I thought of after the interview that we would have liked to have asked them, but overall I felt like we did a great job and got a lot of wonderful information.

Reflecting on the ACT-UP Oral History Project

As we begin class today, please tell the rest of us about the video clips you viewed and the transcript you read for today from the ACT-UP Oral History Project. Which ones did you view or read? What impression did these interviews and transcripts give you about ACT-UP’s history and its role in AIDS activism? What questions did it raise for you? What kind of information or knowledge about this history do these interviews make accessible to us? What did you learn about doing oral history from these sources?

Service-Learning Reflections

Please post your servive-learning reflections here as a comment. Thanks!

Weekly Blog from Kelsey and Cayla

Since we are in the midst of starting the interview for our oral history project, we would like to hear your thoughts on how it is going thus far.  Have there been any troubles contacting your interviewees, what were your first impressions, where are you meeting, are you apprehensive about anything, or any other concerns in general about this project.  Also, for anyone who has already completed an interview, could you offer advice? 

Since Cayla and I are partners for this project, we decided to combine our ideas about this blog.  We got in contact with both of our interviewees via phone after only having to leave one message.  Both of our volunteers were very friendly and seemed willing and excited to meet with us.  They both offered their homes as a place to meet, and we set up our interviews for next week.  We were surprised to find out what busy lives both of our interviewees lead.  Just from trying to schedule time to meet, we learned that not only do they both volunteer countless at Project Angel Heart, but they both hold time-consuming jobs and are leaders in other organizations as well. 

We are not really nervous about the interview, and we are hoping to get some good stories for the paper.  The only issue we are somewhat anxious about is uncovering some personal, emotional story and being unsure of how to respond.  We would like to take a more creative approach to writing these oral histories.  However, because both of us being science majors, we are not entirely confident we can pull this off.  Regardless, we are excited to start this project, as it is a different form of research from what we are used to.  We get to do the research ourselves, rather than interpreting and writing about someone else’s research.  Moreover, our papers have more meaning than just a grade, they will actually benefit PAH.  

Weekly Blog from Leah and Kelly

So this week we've been focusing on our first major papers, so we thought it would be appropriate to blog about our experiences with that. Some people have been very frustrated with the process; others may have had an easy time writing this paper. We were wondering what each of your personal experiences were with this paper. Was it hard to pick a primary source? Find secondary sources? How was the writing process in general for you? Was it easy to make each source complement each other, or was it difficult to write a coherent paper? Overall, did you enjoy this paper, or was it an awful experience?

Leah: I went into the paper with an open mind, excited to get to write about “Moulin Rouge.” But the overall process turned out to be much more difficult and time consuming than I had expected. I found some great secondary sources, and used Sontag, but I had a lot of trouble connecting each idea I wanted to write about to each other. I got very frustrated when my paper didn’t make sense or fall into place itself like my papers usually do. I had to spend a great deal of time editing and revising my thesis to make everything make sense. I think now I have a better idea of what my paper should focus on, but at first I didn’t even know what my argument was supposed to be. I think the outcome of my paper will be successful and well-written, but the process was much more difficult and frustrating than previous papers I’ve had to write.

Kelly: For my primary source, I used patient accounts that I found on a Fibromyalgia website. This proved to be a little more difficult than using a text by one author I think, because I had to synthesize them all into one argument. I also had difficulty finding a secondary source, but ended up finding several studies that included patient interviews, and those worked. I had a hard time starting this paper, and choosing a topic and argument was difficult for me, but after I got going it became much easier. Now I just have to finish the actual writing part, which is my least favorite part. But it shouldn’t be too hard as I have a good outline for my argument and enough evidence to support it.

Reflecting on Paula Treichler and the signifying of AIDS

Given Paula Treichler’s discussion in today’s reading, how was (and perhaps still is) AIDS an epidemic of signification? Why must we, as she argues, democratically determine what AIDS signifies?

After you reflect on these two questions, I’d like you to pose a question about the reading that you think will help generate an interesting class discussion.

Weekly Blog From MaryKate and Stephanie

As Sontag’s work has comprised the majority of our readings thus far, Stephanie and I thought that continuing her discussion of the metaphors that surround certain illnesses would be appropriate.

While we have talked a lot in class about the metaphors of the illnesses Sontag wrote of (TB, Cancer, and AIDS) and acknowledged the metaphors surrounding those certain diseases are less relevant in today’s society (Sontag, did, after all, write the last essay a couple decades ago…)we have not really discussed the diseases or conditions that have replaced them. In her book Sontag wrote, “It seems that societies need to have one illness which becomes identified with evil, and attaches blame to its ‘victims,’ but it is hard to be obsessed with more than one” (104). She also cited other diseases for examples of that “need”, including the plague, tuberculosis, and syphilis. Every disease Sontag discussed in her two essays was the “disease of the day” in its period of time. At the time she wrote her two essays, the plague, tuberculosis and syphilis were definitely not the illnesses of the day, and Cancer and AIDS had replaced them. At the time, her point seemed sufficiently valid. Now that neither Cancer nor AIDS is that disease, however, and a lack of epidemic characterizes the world, Stephanie and I were wondering if you agree with Sontag in her assertion of a constant presence of a stigmatized disease, and if you do, what you think the illness that carries the most stigmatism in our time is. In order to get the discussion going, we also answered that question with our own opinions.

Stephanie: I believe that the most stigmatized disease of today is not necessarily a single disease but a group of disorders. I think that genetic disorders are some of the most stigmatized diseases both because of the cause and because of the ethics behind some of the treatments and testing. The Human Genome Project was finished in 2000 so access to human genes has never been higher. This allows for more understanding of the cause of genetic disorders but also leads to the idea that the disorder is brought on by an error in the very code that makes a person who they are. There are so many ethical questions surrounding the practice of looking at a person’s genome for disorders and what action to take if a disorder is found. I think that the prevalence of genetic disorders will continue to increase as scientists spend more time exploring the human genome and that the issue will grow in the future.

MaryKate: Though I am far from educated on the nature of disorders, diseases, and genetic conditions and the stigmas certain ones may carry, I feel that, just from observation, there is not an illness today that possesses the same magnitude of negative metaphor as Sontag pointed out with TB, Cancer, and AIDs. While elements of negative perceptions of illnesses certainly still exist as remnants of the early, rather ignorant views on Cancer and AIDs, I do not think one illness has replaced them in society as a whole. Genetic disorders can be seen as a flaw in the core of a human, but I don’t believe that is a view widely held. Nor do I believe that diseases such as diabetes carry a society-wide stigma. There are undeniably, however, lingering stigmas that exist for several illnesses. Yet, in comparison to the diseases Sontag presented, none qualify as the “metaphorically burdened illness” of the day.