ABSTRACT
This chapter has its origins in a Facebook thread prompted by Oral History Off the Record. While reading the anthology, I considered the students I had introduced to oral history since 2010. We had delved into shared inquiry and authority, and the power of the co-constructed narratives we fashion with diverse people out of performances of talking, listening, interpreting, and reflecting. Yet, the students seemed unenthused by the power of oral history. For them, the prospect of co-creating narratives and making space for “ordinary people’s” experiences and reflections was passé, even boring. While the power of “I” in eyewitness accounts, oral histories, and feminist scholarship continued to captivate me, the old shibboleths of oral history critique—accuracy, veracity, and, of course, “truth”—preoccupied my students.
