notes on The Death of Luigi Trastulli
p. viii: Oral history began (in Italy) as antagonistic to the written tradition and oriented to the "denial of memory" and the search for repressed memory
p. x: "Never turn the tape recorder off" means to never turn your attention away from the subject and always show respect for what people choose to tell you.
p. xii: Oral history is not one person observing another person, but two people observing each other, and sharing what they are, in the understanding that both will be changed.
p. 2: "History is an invention which reality supplies with raw materials. It is not, however, an arbitrary invention, and the interest it arouses is rooted in the interest of the teller."
Therefore "wrong" tales tell us about the teller's dreams and desires.
p. 21: Narrators seek to confer coherence on their stories by adhering to a mode of narrative.
p. 26: Memory manipulates factual details and chronology in order to serve symbolic, psychological, and formal purposes. No one deliberately does this but the mind has its way of doing so.
"Wrong" stories can therefore tell us more than "right" ones if we know how to look at the material.
p. 31: The interview assumes equality, but equality can't be wished into being, and the process of treating another human being as a subject of research is an inherently painful and ugly one.
p. 37: as oppressed peoples break into history, they bring with them the search for justice, and as such the historian must ensure a scholarly detachment, Ranke's "as objective as possible"
p. 46: Oral sources are oral, and the tapes/MP3s are the original documents, not the transcripts, which are published.
p. 51: There are no false oral sources; memory, desire and motivation enter (as they do in written sources) and create part of what is told, but this does not make them "lies" or false.
p. 55: Historical work using oral sources is unfinished (because oral sources, and orality, are inexhaustible); historical work sans oral sources is unfinished by definition
p. 56: Use of the omniscient third person in historical narrative, and the inherent flawedness of this, which in some cases is unavoidable.
p. 59: To tell a story is to take arms against the threat of time, to resist time, or to harness time.
ch 6: working-class men and allohistorical/uchronic tales. Interesting.
p. x: "Never turn the tape recorder off" means to never turn your attention away from the subject and always show respect for what people choose to tell you.
p. xii: Oral history is not one person observing another person, but two people observing each other, and sharing what they are, in the understanding that both will be changed.
p. 2: "History is an invention which reality supplies with raw materials. It is not, however, an arbitrary invention, and the interest it arouses is rooted in the interest of the teller."
Therefore "wrong" tales tell us about the teller's dreams and desires.
p. 21: Narrators seek to confer coherence on their stories by adhering to a mode of narrative.
p. 26: Memory manipulates factual details and chronology in order to serve symbolic, psychological, and formal purposes. No one deliberately does this but the mind has its way of doing so.
"Wrong" stories can therefore tell us more than "right" ones if we know how to look at the material.
p. 31: The interview assumes equality, but equality can't be wished into being, and the process of treating another human being as a subject of research is an inherently painful and ugly one.
p. 37: as oppressed peoples break into history, they bring with them the search for justice, and as such the historian must ensure a scholarly detachment, Ranke's "as objective as possible"
p. 46: Oral sources are oral, and the tapes/MP3s are the original documents, not the transcripts, which are published.
p. 51: There are no false oral sources; memory, desire and motivation enter (as they do in written sources) and create part of what is told, but this does not make them "lies" or false.
p. 55: Historical work using oral sources is unfinished (because oral sources, and orality, are inexhaustible); historical work sans oral sources is unfinished by definition
p. 56: Use of the omniscient third person in historical narrative, and the inherent flawedness of this, which in some cases is unavoidable.
p. 59: To tell a story is to take arms against the threat of time, to resist time, or to harness time.
ch 6: working-class men and allohistorical/uchronic tales. Interesting.