Spring 2019: WRD 401/ENG:003/ HIS 352: 02 Composing Oral History
Professor: Dr. Janice W. Fernheimer,(jfernheimer [at] uky [dot] edu, www.fernheimer.org)
Class Times: Tues/Thurs., 2:00-3:15 pm Funkauser 307 LEC
Office hours: Patterson Office Tower 1303, Tues/Thurs 11:00-12:00pm and by appointment.
Contacting Dr. Jan: The best way to reach Dr. Jan is by email. Jfernheimer [at] uky [dot] edu
Class Website: http://oh.fernheimer.org Class Hashtags: #jewgrass
Composing Oral History
In this course students will learn about the rhetorical constraints and affordances of oral history as a mode of historical preservation and cultural production. Students will learn oral history methods and put what they learn into practice by working first-hand with the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence Jewish Kentucky Oral History Collection or other collections with Jewish materials housed here at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. Specifically, students will help make extant interviews accessible by creating searchable indexes using the Nunn Center’s open source platform OHMS (the oral history metadata synchronizer), they will work with their peers to develop an interview protocol and conduct an original oral history interview of a local Jewish community member, and they will create digital exhibits (using Omeka) to further the public reach of the project.
*Note the Kentucky Jewish History Symposium will take place on UK’s campus April 25, 2018, and all students will have the opportunity to present their work at this scholarly conference.
Did you know that Kentucky Bourbon, one of the Commonwealth’s signature industries has a long heritage of Jewish distillers, wholesalers, and whiskey men/women? Did you know that Louisville’s Jewish Hospital emerged during a time when it was difficult for Jewish doctors to find jobs and Jewish patients to be treated at regular hospitals because of antiSemitism? Did you know that Lexington has two synagogues with more than 100 years of history and that at one point, most of Lexington’s downtown merchants included Jewish-owned shops? Did you know that the University of Kentucky was home to a Jewish Fraternity (Zeta Beta Tau) and Jewish sorority (Phi Sigma Sigma) in the early part of the 20th century and that its Jewish Student organization, Hillel, has been active on campus for more than 80 years? Students in this class will learn about these and other aspects of Kentucky’s Jewish heritage. They will explore the multi-ethnic fabric of Lexington’s, past, present, and future by working directly with oral histories in University of Kentucky’s Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History and primary materials in UK’s Special Collections libraries. Students will index and curate materials in the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History using OHMS—the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer, conduct oral history interviews with local Jewish community members, present their research to their peers, and construct an Omeka exhibit to share these valuable cultural resources with the public.
Requirements this Course Fulfills: This special section of WRD 112 can be counted toward requirements for the World Religions minor and/or the Jewish Studies minor.