World Trade Center story collector to be among experts at oral history workshop

LAWRENCE -- The third annual oral history workshop at the University of Kansas will feature a collector of post-disaster World Trade Center stories among its experts this year.

Mary Marshall Clark, a Columbia University professor and director of the oral history research project focusing on the World Trade Center attacks, will present "Narratives of Tragedy: Immigrant Communities of New York."

The lecture will be among six sessions offered during "Learning to Hear the Stories III: The Borders of Memory" from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, March 29, in the Kansas Union ballroom.

The workshop will highlight the importance of preserving oral history and traditions, in addition to more traditionally documented information.

Victor Bailey, professor of history and director of the Hall Center for the Humanities at KU, said Clark's World Trade Center session illustrates that oral history preserves more than local or familial history.

"Oral history is something that can be used as a resource to help you understand something as vast as the World Trade Center tragedy," Bailey said. "People don't always write these things down."

Maryemma Graham, English professor and workshop coordinator, said last's year's workshop attracted more than 150 participants, who learned about oral history and traditions in Kansas.

Nearly 100 people already have preregistered for this year's program, which will look at how other communities and cultures record and revere oral history.

To accomplish that task, this year's workshop features Doris Saunders, a Chicago poet and author of "Ancestor Hunting"; Ross Talarico, a California poet and author of "Spreading the Word" and "The Journey Home," two books based on oral history; Mike Tosee, professor of American Indian studies at Haskell Indian Nations University; and Alhaji Papa Susso, director of Koriya Musa Center for Research in Oral Tradition in the Republic of Gambia.

"The workshop combines the theory of oral history and new developments in the field with the practical portion of how to do it," Graham said. "Last year we focused specifically on Kansas. This year we're stretching beyond."

Graham said the workshop gives the university another chance to reach out to the community. The program is open to the public with preregistration. In the past, she said, curious amateur historians have worked alongside filmmakers, professors, lawyers and poets to learn more about the process of preserving oral history and tradition.

One of the main purposes of the workshop, Graham said, is to put participants in contact with professionals who already work to preserve oral history. The workshop is a chance for others to learn how to go about the process.

"We have a multifaceted goal," she said. "We want people to start projects in their families, communities and churches, but people often don't know how to do that. When you hear from somebody who's doing it, sometimes that helps."

This year's workshop sponsors include the KU Center for Research, Project on the History of Black Writing, the Department of African and African American Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of English and the Hall Center for the Humanities.

For more information, visit www.hallcenter.ku.edu or call (785) 864-4798.