Guest Editors' Introduction: The Contributions of Ronald J. Grele to Oral History

"It is no exaggeration to say that, for over five decades, Ronald J. Grele has been one of the most influential oral historians in the world," writes Andor Skotnes, one of the contributors to this special section.¹ Grele's career in oral history began in 1965-1966 when he served as archivist and interviewer for the John F. Kennedy Oral History Project and continues to the present in which, as director emeritus of the Oral History Research Office (now the Center for Oral History Research) at Columbia University, he continues to teach, lecture, advise, and consult on oral history. However, Grele is perhaps best known for his original and theoretically rich writings, including his foundational articles collected in two editions of Envelopes of Sound and the coauthored 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt.²

This work and the work he published as editor of the International Journal of Oral History from 1980 to 1985 advance ideas that are still at the forefront of critical thinking in the field: a recognition of the interview as a text to be interpreted, not simply a document to be mined for data; an emphasis on decoding the political, historical, and cognitive structures underlying an interview narrative; and an appreciation for the role of the interviewer in creating a complex document. The continuing salience of these and other insights into the theory and practice of oral history all merit the retrospective view we present here. In addition, while oral historians newer to the field may be familiar with Grele's work, they are less likely to understand the intellectual and social context shaping it. The essays in this special section of the Oral History Review provide that context and so contribute to the historiography of the field.

Fig 1.

Ron in his office at Columbia University holding a copy of the recently published 2nd edition of Envelopes of Sound, circa 1985. (Photo courtesy of Ronald J. Grele.)

Background

On the occasion of the Oral History Association's fiftieth anniversary meeting in 2016, we organized and presented the session, "The Work of Ronald J. Grele: A Lifetime of Contributions to Oral History." The session included five of Ron's colleagues, all longtime practitioners of oral history: Mary Marshall Clark, director of the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research and codirector of Columbia's Oral History Master of Arts Program; Alexander Freund, professor of history and director of the Oral History Centre at the University of Winnipeg; Luisa Passerini, professor of cultural history at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy; Andor Skotnes, professor of history at The Sage Colleges; and John Kuo Wei Tchen, Inaugural Clement A. Price Chair in Public History and the Humanities at Rutgers University-Newark.

Each participant reflected on an aspect of Grele's contributions and career, conveying both appreciation and commentary and linking his work to the broader historiography of our collective enterprise. The well-attended session was both substantive and celebratory, appropriately honoring Grele and his work. Its success encouraged us to propose a more formal publication of the papers in order to reach a wider audience than present at the session. Fortunately, the editors of the Oral History Review agreed. We asked participants to revise and expand upon their OHA presentations with an eye towards more closely aligning them with each other. Each did so with skill and care, and we passed the five essays on to Grele for his response. The result of this accumulated labor is presented here, along with a bibliography of Grele's published work in oral history.

The Essays

Two related themes connect the essays: the richness of Grele's notion of an interview as, in his words, a "conversational narrative" and the radical politics underlying his work. Several address Grele's concept of conversation as both the back-and-forth dialogue that defines an oral history interview and the ongoing critical exchange among like-minded comrades for whom oral history is intrinsic to a broader political practice. Several also consider how Grele...