MasterClass on Eurasia: Oral History as a Neglected Methodology in Eurasian History

1991 ushered in the so-called "archival revolution," allowing scholars if Russia and Central Asia to access written sources that had been inaccessible to international scholars. The end of the Cold War also allowed first-hand engagement with people living throughout Eurasia. however, this paradigm shift has not been matched by methodological reflection on how best to combine oral history with more traditional methods. This practical workshop will address all of the questions you had about oral history but were afraid to ask: best practices, ethical issues, and the possibilities oral history offers to the repertoire of scholars studying Eurasia.

Instructor: Krista Goff is a historian of Soviet and post-Soviet history, with a particular interest in the North and South Caucasus. In her research and teaching, she explores the historical formation of minorities and the experience of minoritization in these historical contexts, as well as interrelated themes of nationalism, citizenship, empire, ethnic conflict, genocide, and migration. In addition to being associate professor of history at the University of Miami, Goff is also co-editor of Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History and co-director of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Think Tank, which is based at Howard University. Dr. Goff’s most recent book, Nested Nationalism: Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus (Cornell UP, 2020) has won numerous prizes, including the Rothschild Prize from the Association for the Study of Nationalities, the Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the Baker-Burton Award from the European Section of the Southern Historical Association.

Moderator: James Pickett, Assistant Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
Time
Mar 25, 2022 12:00 PM in Pacific Time (US and Canada)