OPASA, the Oral History and Performance as Social Action Institute at Northwestern University will be hosting a one-day conference on MAY 11TH, 2012, around the challenges and success of staging oral history. We welcome performative and scholastic papers that consider, but are not limited to: The role of oral history in imagining and (re)configuring the relationship between African Diaspora(s) and the continent. Oral history and activist practices The relationship between performative and scholastic oral history methodologies The relationship between oral history, nostalgia, and archival practices The role of performance in reproducing and contesting archival practices Contributions may include performative papers that theorize from experiences in creating performance using oral history, readings from critical performance ethnography scripts, footage from oral history performances, or scholarly analyses of oral history performances in Africa and from the Diaspora. Contextually, OPASA serves researchers that employ oral history as a central methodology in examining the performatives of public dissent, social movements, and human rights activism in Africa and the black Diaspora. This conference seeks to strengthen the connection between Africana Studies and Performance Studies, alongside Anthropology, Sociology, Ethnic and Critical Race Studies, among others.

Artists, Activists, and Scholars will convene on Northwestern’s campus on the 11th of May to share their work and engage in critical conversation and community building. The conference will also include a practice-based workshop devised to interrogate the tenuous position of the researcher in staging oral history. The event will culminate in a viewing of D. Soyini Madison’s premier performance Labor Rites devised by Madison and Northwestern students using oral history and ethnographic methods.

Please submit full papers to Andrew Brown at
andrewbrown@u.northwestern.edu and Nikki Yeboah at
nikkiyeboah2013@u.norhtwestern.edu by Friday, April 6th, 2012. Notification of acceptance will be made by Friday, April 13th, 2012. Some funding is available for travel and accommodation for graduate students who have to travel. If you predict you will need financial assistance in attending, please mention this in your email.