Written by ikonukm
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18 August 2011
Seminar on Oral History, Living Memory and Social Integration
Associate Professor Holger Briel,
University of Nicosia, Cyprus
22 December 2011
Sudut Wacana ATMA
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Abstract
The goal of this seminar is to introduce oral history work. It will explore existing personal local memories as manifested in oral history work already conducted in other parts of the world and then localize these results for a Malaysian environment. While official memories shape much of what people believe, individual ones carry a personalized weight oftentimes adding significant details to the former. The seminar will examine existing oral history work, deconstruct it and then, together with the participants, work on ways to undertake such work in Malaysia. The seminar will provide a theoretical background to such projects and then will analyse how they differ depending on demographics, viewpoints and cultural circumstances. It will also address issues of multiethnic communities and how such projects are able to strengthen citizenship values and tolerance. In this regard, Holger Briel is an expert. He teaches at the University of Nicosia and has been instrumental in drafting European Union documents on the role of oral history projects in sensitive political areas. Recently, he has also been running such a project in Cyprus and, with other European colleagues, in several other European countries. In the Cyprus project, it became clear that it was especially the similarities in experiences told that held hope for the future and that it was the social cohesions prior generations possessed that allowed them to coexist peacefully. And while oral histories have been told and archived before, digital storytelling has only become available over the last few years through technology’s progress and this will newly define the narrative and its region culturally and socio-politically. Enlisting ways to make such projects sustainable and to create archives will round out the seminar.
Short bio-history
Holger Briel received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a dissertation on the aesthetic theories of Adorno and Derrida. His most recent book publication is Glocalisation: Electronic Media in South Eastern Europe (2009). Earlier books included German Culture and Society: A Glossary (2002) and Adorno and Derrida, or where lie the ends of modernity? (1993). Other publications of his center on European Arts and Literature, (Trans-)Cultural Studies, New Media, Manga and Anime. Over the last few years Holger Briel has been focusing on an EU funded oral history project setting up and conducting oral history projects in Cyprus and its neighboring countries. His research interests include international Human Resource Management, Inter-cultural Studies, Broadcast Media in the Digital Age, Visual Media and the Sociology of the Digital World. Presently, he teaches Media and Communication Studies at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus and the Indian Institute of Learning and Management, New Delhi.
