Category: Speakers and Presentations

The Michigan Oral History Association is currently seeking proposals for the MOHA 2020 Conference. We welcome proposals for presentations, sessions and papers on oral history projects:

• Focused on Michigan, and/or
• Led by Michigan-based scholars
• Research projects (issues analyzed with oral history methods and interviews)
• Collections of oral histories focusing on a particular time period/community/group

The Program Committee seeks a diverse slate of presenters representing a variety of personal and institutional backgrounds, perspectives, and voices.  We encourage submission from anyone interested in presenting – including students, new and seasoned professionals, first-time presenters, and those from allied professions. See our brainstorming Google Sheet below to share ideas and start building possible panels.

Proposals may be one of the following:

1. Presentation Panels with up to three powerpoint presentations (15 minutes per presentation), plus a chair and/or discussant.
2. Non-Traditional Panels 5-8 contributors to a session formatted as a roundtable, lightening round or Pecha Kucha. In addition to contributors, non-traditional panels may also have one moderator.
3. Individual Presentation or Partnered/Panel Presentation on a common theme. An example could be a longer presentation on a case-study of a successful oral history project, discussing challenges, successes, methods, and a Q & A.
4. Paper Panel with up to three academic papers presented (15 minutes per presentation), plus a chair and/or discussant. Co-authored papers are welcome.  If you have a large group of colleagues who want to present papers, divide your group into two panels.

Proposals should include (see accompanying Submission Form):

• “Participant List”
• “Abstracts” (containing type of session format proposed and Session Title, accompanied by a 300-word abstract PLUS all individual paper/contribution titles, each accompanied with a 200-word abstract.

All participants who are accepted into the Conference program must become MOHA members by the time of the conference.

PROPOSAL DUE DATE:  December 16, 2019 

Send your proposal files as email attachments (.docx only please) to Lindsay Hiltunen at lehalkol@mtu.edu.  Questions may be directed to Ms. Hiltunen at her e-mail or (906) 487-3209.
Request e-copy of Submission Form to info@michiganoha.org.
Brainstorming:  No sign-on required link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tT8FsPzfSUQobrIDJSr_6c8FN5hvPae9SSGY_yv_yjU/edit?usp=sharing

Please join us for visiting scholar Katherine Belliel at 4:00 pm on Friday, November 1 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus for her travel grant talk, “The Hats of Calumet and Women in Front: Creative Writing About Women of the Copper Country.” This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In this presentation, Belliel will discuss the research process and inspiration behind her two creative projects on the life of Calumet native, and Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, Anna Klobuchar Clemenc. The Hats of Calumet is a collection of short fiction pieces told from the perspective of a variety of hats worn by different historical characters narrating the crucial events in Anna’s life. This project illustrates how domestic violence, infertility, immigration, and the “third culture kid” (TCK) experience both influenced and spurred her activism, tying Anna to not only American Labor History, but also the current Women’s Movement of today. “Women in Front,” a braided essay comparing and contrasting the role of women in the 1913 Copper Country Strike with the 2013 Gezi protests in Turkey, will also be discussed. A short reading from both creative projects will follow the discussion.

Katherine Belliel is an American writer based in Turkey and the US. She is the co-editor of Expat Sofra: Culinary Tales of Foreign Women in Turkey (Alfa 2019), and her work has also appeared in several expat anthologies such as Tales from the Expat Harem (Eds. Ashman and Gokmen, 2005), Encounters with the Middle East (Bowman and Khashan, 2006), and Single Mothers Speak on Patriarchy (eds. Hendren and Daly, 2016). She is currently an MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University.

Belliel’s research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library. Since 1988, the Michigan Technological University Archives Travel Grant program has helped scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the Michigan Tech Archives.

For more information, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at 906-487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or visit on the web at http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/. You can also find us on Facebook, @mtuarchives on Twitter, and as michigantecharchives on Instagram.

Award winning author Mary Doria Russell will be coming to Houghton for two special events centered around her recent novel The Women of the Copper Country. The Portage Lake District Library (PLDL) and the J. Robert Van Pelt and John and Ruanne Opie Library (Van Pelt and Opie Library) are excited to host her for a two-part presentation series. 

A formal lecture will take place on October 8 at 7 pm in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Tech campus. A social hour and book signing will follow the presentation. A second event, an informal book talk and book signing, will take place at the PLDL on October 9 from 6-8 pm. Refreshments will be served at both events and all are welcome to attend!

The Women of the Copper Country centers on the life of American labor activist, Annie Clements, as well as paints a broader historical portrait of the lives of local people in the midst of a turbulent labor movement and social landscape. The historical novel is startlingly relevant today and would be of great interest to the campus and local communities. Some of the research for her book was conducted with assistance from the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. 

For more information about the events please contact Katie Edson (906) 487-1636, Lindsay Hiltunen (906) 487-3209, or Michael Stanitis (906) 482-4570. The author’s visit is made possible by a travel grant from the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library and The Women of the Copper Country Planning Committee.

Please join us for visiting scholar Dr. Matthew Liesch at 4:00 pm on Monday, June 25 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus for his travel grant talk, “Circling Lake Superior: Rephotography to Document Changing Landscapes of the Lake Superior Circle Tour.” This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In this presentation, Liesch will guide the audience on a photographic journey to explore changing landscapes from throughout the Copper Country and the Lake Superior Circle Tour. This presentation features historic landscape photography from the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections, and supplements these with other scenes along the route. For comparative purposes, Liesch has rephotographed ordinary landscapes around Lake Superior during 2018. Observations are illuminated through archived policies, and plans, plus perspectives from geography and land use planning alike.

Matthew Liesch, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Central Michigan University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies. His areas of research interest include cultural and historical geography, landscape studies, park and protected areas, and environmental policy. He has published and presented extensively on these topics and is active in the professional community.

Liesch’s research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library. Since 1988, the Michigan Technological University Archives Travel Grant program has helped scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the Michigan Tech Archives.

For more information, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at 906-487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or visit on the web at http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/. You can also find us on Facebook, @mtuarchives on Twitter, and as michigantecharchives on Instagram.

Each regional alliance meets at least twice a year to bring together representatives from HSM member historical organizations in several counties. The gatherings will feature a speaker to address a topic of interest and allow for conversations among each region’s historical organizations. Attendance at the Michigan History Alliance networking sessions is free of charge for current member organizations of HSM. Membership is required for participation.

Alliance meetings will also offer separate three-hour History Skills Workshops led by authorities in the field. Lindsay Hiltunen, University Archivist at Michigan Tech, will facilitate a workshop and brainstorming session on All-Ages Archives. The workshop will discuss collaboration with community partners in order to plan, develop, implement, and assess creative outreach and primary source research instruction to K-12 students and community groups. The session will utilize examples to show the power of teamwork and good planning and will showcase successes and address challenges that come up in the planning process. There is a fee to attend the History Skills Workshops.

For more information about the program, contact Assistant Director for Education Programs and Events Robert Myers at (517) 324-1828 or myers@hsmichigan.org.

Please join us for a keynote presentation by guest scholar Krysta Ryzewski at 4:00 pm on Friday, September 22 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus. This event is part of A Celebration: 25 Years of Industrial Heritage and Archaeology, an anniversary of the founding of the Industrial Archaeology program, and is made possible through the Visiting Women and Minorities Lecture and Scholar Series at Michigan Tech. This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In this presentation, Ryzewski will discuss Ethnic Layers of Detroit (ELD) and Unearthing Detroit, two interdisciplinary heritage projects in metro Detroit. ELD is an urban-focused digital humanities project engaging faculty and student researchers in creating, documenting, and sharing multimedia narratives of Detroit’s ethnic histories. Unearthing Detroit is a project that involves both academic research and public archaeology in its focus on the urban historical archaeology collections housed in the Grosscup Museum of Anthropology at Wayne State University. The project’s research and outreach team is comprised of archaeology faculty and graduate students from Wayne State’s Department of Anthropology, as well as a number of volunteers from the local community. Ryzewski’s talk will address challenges, successes, and implications of the projects that will be of interest to a diverse audience.

Krysta Ryzewski, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University and is the Director of the Digging Detroit project, an investigation of industrial and post-industrial urban communities in the Motor City. She is a leading researcher in historical and contemporary archaeology and the digital humanities.

Ryzewski’s research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Institutional Equity and Inclusion office’s Visiting Women and Minority Series. Additional arrangements and refreshments are made possible by the Social Sciences Department and the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

For more information about this program or the Industrial Archaeology program’s 25th anniversary, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at 906-487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or call the Social Sciences department at 906-487-2113.

Please join us for a presentation by travel grant recipient Gabe Logan at 4:00 pm on Tuesday, November 15 in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Technological University campus. This event is free of charge and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In this presentation, Logan will discuss the Labor Sport Union and its influence in the iron ranges of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. From 1928 through 1935 the United States Communist Party developed the Labor Sport Union. This athletic organization united left wing politics and athletics in an alternative vision of sport and society. The LSU drew much of its membership from the urban cities whose immigrant populations sought recreation beyond the schools and company teams. However, the LSU also found an appreciative audience in the rural iron ore region of Lake Superior. This presentation explains the significance of the LSU in the region and how its members embraced the “red sports” ideology.

Gabe Logan, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of History and the Director for the Center of Upper Peninsula Studies at Northern Michigan University. Logan’s research visit and presentation are supported by a travel grant from the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library. Since 1988, the Michigan Tech Archives has partnered with the FMTL to help scholars advance their research by supporting travel to the manuscript collections at the archives.

For more information, feel free to call the Michigan Tech Archives at (906) 487-2505, email at copper@mtu.edu, or visit on the web at http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/.

The Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections is pleased to invite the community to our project reception for the “Black Voices in the Copper Country” project. The presentation and social hour will take place on Tuesday, May 31 at 6 p.m. in the Van Pelt and Opie Library’s East Reading Room. This event is free and open to the public. Assorted hors d’oeuvres and other refreshments will be served.

Please join us for a reception to celebrate the work of the “Black Voices in the Copper Country” project, which has been a year-long effort to explore African-American social history in the northwestern Upper Peninsula. Lindsay Hiltunen and Martin Hobmeier will discuss their research findings and provide a preview of content that will be a part of the online exhibit, which is scheduled to launch in June 2016.

For more information, please contact the Michigan Tech Archives at (906) 487-2505 or copper@mtu.edu.

This reception is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Friends of the Calumet Public Library is sponsoring a presentation next week by Sawyer Newman, Communications and Research Assistant at the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

During this talk, Newman will discuss the value that archives can have as active members of their respective communities and the benefit that oral histories add to archival collections. The talk will utilize examples of oral history from the current Mine Memories project and other oral history collections held by the Michigan Tech Archives.

The talk will take place on Wednesday, April 6 at 6:30 P.M. at the Calumet Public Library (located on the C-L-K campus, 57070 Mine Street, Calumet). The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

If you have any questions about this project, or if you would like to share your mine-related histories, please contact the Michigan Tech Archives at copper@mtu.edu or at 906-487-2505.

The Mine Memories project is funded in part by a Heritage Grant from the Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission. 

As part of the “Black Voices in the Copper Country” project, the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections will be hosting a talk by Dr. Michelle S. Johnson, a Community Historian with the Michigan Historical Center in Lansing.

The talk will be held at 4pm on Wednesday, March 2 in the Van Pelt and Opie Library’s East Reading Room. The presentation, “Exhibits for a New Century: Researching the African American Experience in Michigan from the Copper Country to the Capital,” will explore the historical center’s Exhibits for a New Century project, which is an interpretive exhibit documenting the African American experience across the state. Johnson will also discuss the methods and meaning behind the exhibit as well as a statewide research initiative to uncover and share African American narratives in Michigan history, such as the grant-funded project taking place at the Michigan Tech Archives.  This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Johnson has executed extensive work on securing and promoting spaces where socially marginalized people express their autonomous and authentic selves. As co-founder and executive director of Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, she collected and oversaw the collection of numerous oral histories around issues of place, community, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality and history. Johnson served as the Freedom Trail coordinator for the State of Michigan from 2000-2008 and consults on 19th century history projects in the state and the mid-west region, especially the Underground Railroad. She researches, writes and lectures for academic and public settings on aspects of African American culture in Michigan. Her scholarship includes a community project in Loughman, Florida researching, interpreting and performing the work of Zora Neale Hurston. Named WIDR’s “most beloved DJ,” Johnson has appeared as a weekly host for Slip Back Soul for 9 years as DJ Disobedience.

This talk is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.