James (left) and Bodnar
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As one of the nation’s leading research institutions, IU is home to more than 160 institutes and centers, 33 of which are under the auspices of the Office of the Vice President for Research. IU Home Pages has created Think Tank to acquaint readers with the missions and activities of this wide array of scholarly environments. Now in its 37th year, the Center for the Study of History and Memory at IU Bloomington is at the forefront of the growing interdisciplinary field of memory studies.
Send your suggestions for centers and institutes to be featured in future issues to Lee Ann Sandweiss at lsandwei@indiana.edu
The Center for the Study of History and Memory
Founded in 1968 by Oscar O. Winther as the “Oral History Project,” the Center for the Study of History and Memory (CSHM) was originally conceived as an initiative to collect the history of Indiana University. The enormous potential of oral history as a research and pedagogical tool was quickly apparent, and the project expanded as other research studies were added to its growing archive.
In 1981, John Bodnar, chair of IUB’s Department of History, became the project’s director and changed its name to the Oral History Research Center to reflect its broadened scope and mission—to preserve, collect and interpret 20th-century history through the medium of first-person testimony, with particular emphasis on the history of Indiana and the Midwest.
To better address developments in the field of memory studies, the center expanded its mission and changed its name again in 2002. Daniel James, Mendel Chair in Latin American history, became co-director, bringing his international perspective and expertise in collective memory research to shape the center’s new direction.
“The driving reason to internationalize the work is because IU has expertise in international areas, and this will enhance our ability to attract grant money. The broader the net, the more possible financial lifeblood,” Bodnar explained.
Located in Ashton-Aley West on the eastern end of the IUB campus, the center has an archive that includes more than 2,000 recorded interviews on topics ranging from the history of Indiana communities to the evolution of American philanthropy. According to Barbara Truesdell, assistant director, the CSHM is close to completion of a searchable database of the oral history collection. Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the initiative is being done in collaboration with the IU Digital Library Program.
As the CSHM’s only full-time staff person, Truesdell manages the center’s day-to-day operation, which includes publishing a newsletter and a pamphlet on oral history interviewing, presenting oral history training workshops and overseeing the center’s current projects, including a book-length study of the changing meanings of the Statue of Liberty over time. Commissioned by the National Parks Service, the book will examine such issues as the statue as a symbol of immigration, its treatment in popular culture and on the Internet, its ideological roots, its significance and use by African Americans, and the use of the statue during wartime.
For nearly four decades, the CSHM has remained at the cutting edge of the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, of which oral history is one important facet. Bodnar and James admit that history and memory may seem like strange bedfellows, but their complementary methodologies are essential to address the many ways that people remember, represent and use the past in public and private life.
“Until now, memory has been the purview of literature—think Proust—and it tends to allow us to see the contradictions and messiness of the past. History, on the other hand, has aspired to give a structured and coherent view of the past. It aspires to be objective, although it really can’t be,” said Bodnar. “Memory incorporates an emotional dimension that cannot be captured by historical narrative structure. In a sense, memory threatens the goals of history and spills over its boundaries. That makes some people in the discipline uncomfortable.”
The absence of a comfort level is a good thing, maintains James. “For the past 20 years or so, the poor nature of disciplinary boundaries has created a need to take into account contributions from other disciplines—literature, anthropology, psychology, gender studies and so on. The oral history method, which has always been multidisciplinary, is embraced by young scholars and isn’t going to go away. Memory has become trendy in the academic world lately and is receiving sustained attention it hasn’t received in the past.”
When asked if the unspoken mission of the CSHM is to shake up their discipline, Bodnar replied, “We hope so.”
http://www.indiana.edu/~cshm/
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