The Regional Oral History Office [ROHO] at the University of California, Berkeley is offering a one-week advanced institute on the methodology, theory, and practice of oral/video history, from the afternoon of Sunday, August 15, through Friday, August 20, 2004. The institute will be led by Richard Cándida Smith, Director of ROHO and Professor in the Department of History at UC Berkeley, with two distinguished visiting scholars: Luisa Passerini, Professor of History at the European University in Florence, Italy, and Ana Maria Mauad, Professor of History and Coordinator for the Laboratory of Oral History and Iconography, at Universidade Fluminense Federal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The institute is designed for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, college faculty, and independent scholars who use oral history interviews as part of a research project, and geared, as well, to community historians and others who are engaged in oral history work on an on-going basis.

The institute's program focuses on the specific research topics of participants, with the goal of deepening their research questions and sharpening their methods. It is the participants' projects, and the larger historiographic questions they engage, that provide the platform from which the faculty and ROHO staff direct their expertise. Specific issues in oral history will be addressed: preparation for interviewing, legal release, interview techniques, analysis of completed research projects, web archiving and access. Applications are due May 7 and notification of acceptance will be sent May 21. For application and further information see our website.