ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

New Directions at the Intersection of Oral History, Digital Humanities, and the History of Science

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

English Abstract

As historians of science expand their interest beyond traditional sites and actors, oral history becomes increasingly important as a means of bringing untold stories and neglected voices to the foreground. At the same time, the discovery of interviews relevant to specific themes remains difficult, since oral history collections tend to be highly dispersed, with non-standardized metadata and search interfaces.

In this session, we introduce the CORAL (Commoning Oral Histories of Knowledge) platform developed at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. CORAL aims to take advantage of the increasing availability of digitized interviews and rapid advances in computational data analysis to raise the visibility and usability of oral history interviews in the history of science, technology, medicine, and environment.

The session combines a roundtable discussion with a hands-on workshop, both moderated by chair Silvia Pérez-Criado. Etienne Benson will present CORAL’s aims and ethical principles; Pascal Belouin will introduce the platform’s user interface, including its user-driven catalogue-creation features; Wishyut Pitawanik will describe data analysis methods applied to interview collections; Hari Sridhar will explain how CORAL was used to index a collection of more than 150 oral history interviews with ecologists. In the hands-on portion of the session, participants will explore the platform in real time, test its search and visualization features, and experiment with building cross-collection thematic sets.

The session aims to highlight the practical benefits of integrating digital humanities tools with oral history methodologies and to reflect on the ethical and epistemological implications of bringing diverse oral history collections into conversation. The session will conclude with a round of feedback and open discussion. We encourage attendees to bring their own laptop or tablet for the hands-on portion of the session.

Sub Unit

• Roundtable

Chair

• Silvia Pérez-Criado, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Participants

• Etienne Benson, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

• Pascal Belouin, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

• Wishyut Pitawanik, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

• Hari Sridhar, Independent Researcher, Vienna, Austria

Session Organizer

• Etienne Benson, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science