Reddit reviews Doing Oral History

Im not sure what level youre at, but I assume undergrad (sorry if Im wrong!) There is actually a huge movement in history, it got started in the 80s and 90s, called the post-modern approach to history. I think A LOT of postmodernist historiography is bullshit, but they do have one or two good ideas. One thing they do do, which is useful, is they question what a source is, exactly? As Im sure youre aware, most "modernist" (or traditional) history is based off of primary sources, which are written documents usually found in archives. Postmodernists argue that those sources are no better than an oral source, a picture or painting, an artifact, etc.

What that means for you, is you could base your paper (research) off of Oral sources, if you so choose. Now, I dont know what kind of university the U of Ill. is, but some historians dont really accept this school of thought. Thus, Id strongly recommend you ask your professor before using non-traditional sources in a paper. But if they OK it, you could do oral interviews of your Moroccan classmate, her family, and other members of the local Moroccan community. Then, instead of writing the "Be-all-end-all Military history of the Spanish-Moroccan War", youd writing something like "The Moroccan War in the popular memory of Moroccan-American immigrants." or something like that. It changes the story, but if youre locked into that topic, itd be an excellent way to go. If you do decide to take the popular memory route, I would also recommend reading History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past. The book discusses popular memory in the context of World War Two, and the Atomic Bombings. It discusses the tension between historians, some of whom say the bombings were immoral or even criminal, and people who experienced the event (or were related to veterans, who experienced the event), whose popular memory is different. Its an interesting discussion, which at its heart discusses the conflict between what we, as historians, say, and what people remember about an event.

But regardless of what you do, GOOD LUCK! If you have any questions, reply to this comment, or PM me, and Ill help as I can.