Thematic Approach

GIRES is committed to creating a welcoming space for discussion, collaboration, and exploration of oral history’s potential as a tool for local, national, and international projects that would enrich and even revise chapters of history. 

Our new international conference seeks to promote the importance of oral history as a valuable and unique source of information. For decades, oral history was considered less than scholarly, leading to its exclusion from several history books; thus valuable first-hand experiences and information that could alter historical truth were neglected and ultimately lost to oblivion. We wish to challenge the pervading view that oral testimony can lead to false representation of historical events; and underline the significant support they can provide to historical research, especially in lieu of written documentation. 

We also hope to focus on the connections between oral history, collective memory, and individual memory. Whether from a historical, social, or even psychological approach we wish to engage scholars in a multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach in order to deeply explore all aspects of this valuable and fascinating discipline. 

We invite scholars from different fields including history, philosophy, religion, sociology, international relations, literature, art, space studies, peace studies, cultural studies, minority studies, war and/or genocide studies, journalism, immigration studies, psychology and psychiatry, political and social studies, and those working in archives, museums and NGOs. 

Proposed Topics 

-Oral history throughout history
-Oral historian: a public historian? Oral history as a form of social and communal activity;
-Conducting oral history research: Methodologies and techniques
-Re-examining and re-writing history through the lens of oral history
-Epistemological and ethical dilemmas in oral history
-Collective/Individual memory and oral tradition
-Manipulation of memory and the role of oral history
-Oral history and trauma
-Oral history as a tool of revealing/reliving a dictatorship/suppressing regime
-Altering, exaggerating or forgetting memories; the psychology of a survivor
-Oral history in teaching and teaching oral history

Proposed Formats (Lingua franca: English)
-Individual papers (GIRES will included it in a panel)
-Panels (up to 4 presentations-chaired by one of the presenters or appointed by GIRES)
-Roundtable presentations (chaired by one of the presenters or appointed by GIRES)
-Poster presentations
-Student presentations (one paper presented by up to 3 young scholars)
-Keynote speech (depending on the time availability)
-Pre-recorder presentation (s) (Asynchronous Platform)
-Pre-recorder presentation (s) (Synchronous-live- Sessions: live participation of presenter (s) during the Q&A sessions)

Publication Opportunity 
The Organizing Committee and GIRES Press will publish the most powerful and dynamic presentations of the conference and include them
in a collective volume in the form of short articles and/or long essays. For more information please contact us