Making History Project – Veteran Oral History Preserving Veterans’ Stories
Veterans Oral History Program
I am pleased to announce that a coveted grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities was awarded to a Veterans oral history program that I will be working with. Specifically, the NEH grant for Dialogues on the Experience of War was awarded to Governors State University for a program titled “War, Trauma, and the Humanities”. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Andrae Marak, and Rosemary Johnsen, will be the co-directors for the project.
Oral History Training and Presentation
My immediate role for this veterans oral history project will be to train students on how to conduct and interpret veteran oral history interviews as they relate to war, trauma, and memory. Additionally, I will be called upon to present World War II veteran oral history interviews that address combat-related trauma.
Combat Trauma and Memory
The project will focus on the ways in which members of the military experience trauma–lived and remembered, on and off the field of battle. To that end, the project will include an intensive eight-week college course covering the experiences of veterans and trauma across the conflicts of World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Iraq/Afghanistan. The course work will focus on primary sources, historical novels, poetry, and feature films. Five students who are military veterans will be selected to assist with the college course. The veteran students will share their experience while also helping to present materials and moderate discussions.
Town Hall for Understanding and Healing
The end of the project will feature a video and audio taped town hall meeting in which the five veteran students, class members, professors, local veterans, and interested members of the public will interact and engage in a lively discussion concerning the topics covered in the class. The town hall meeting will be aired on the public television station run by Governors State University, which has an audience of approximately one million viewers.
If you would like more information concerning this unique and important work, feel free to contact me.
