Editor’s Introduction

The current issue of the Oral History Review is the first to be developed by the new editorial team, which took over the editorship on January 1, 2012. I refer to the contributions of individual editors specifically below, but I begin by thanking them collectively. They are a tremendously dedicated, energetic, and creative crew, motivated by a commitment to the journal and its place in the life of the Oral History Association and the broader oral history community. Together, we hope to make the Review a lively site in which to experience, discuss, and debate oral history.

For several months, the editorial team has been envisioning and planning a more fully multimedia Review. This issue begins that transition. It features two articles that are built around or enhanced by multimedia content. First, Siobhan McHugh’s article, “The Affective Power of Sound: Oral History on Radio,” uses the concept of affect to explore the power of the spoken word. Radio is the medium for McHugh’s oral history practice, and reading this article requires listening to embedded audio excerpts, as her argument unfolds in sound as well as text. Next, Roger Davis Gatchet’s article, “‘I’ve Got Some Antique in Me’: The Discourse of Authenticity and Identity in the African American Blues Community in Austin, Texas,” includes two songs by the musicians featured in the article. We recognize that many readers, long familiar with the Review only in its print form, will need assistance in making the transition to multimedia reading. To ease the way, see “Instructions for Multimedia Reading of the OHR,” which follows this editor’s introduction.

The concept of affect, central to Siobhan McHugh’s argument, arises in Roger Davis Gatchet’s analysis as well. Although neither author intended for his or her argument to be repurposed in quite this way, they both indirectly make the case for the value, even the necessity, of multimedia reading. McHugh demonstrates that affect theory helps us understand precisely how sound— including, but not limited to, the spoken word—moves us. Of music, she notes that affect theory teaches us that music registers as bodily sensation and, like many other aspects of sound, does so at a noncognitive, emotional level. One of Gatchet’s blues musicians makes the same point. Describing legendary blues musician Freddie King, James Kuykendall told Gatchet in an interview, “it’s funny how you can feel the power from this man. When he starts, you could feel something around you. . . . And when he plays you can feel it inside you, man. Just being close to him, you know?. . . You could feel electricity moving around.” Gatchet concludes that there is something ineffable about music, even as he uses words—the written, printed word—to tell us so and he deploys Kuykendall’s words—first spoken, later transcribed and edited into print—to help convince us. As scholars, teachers, and students, we need the printed word (whether printed on the page or pixelated on a screen), as it is an ideal medium for contemplating ideas that we need time to digest and consider. As we read, we can stop, think, and reread. But the spoken word and other sonic elements (music, ambient sound, and tonal aspects of the voice) register and convince us in other ways. Thus, we need also to listen, for there are arguments in sound, as well as arguments to be made (in print) about sound.

The development of a more fully multimedia Review will, the editorial team hopes, expand the opportunity and the means for our collective scholarly discussion about oral history, in all its orality and aurality (concepts which Siobhan McHugh sorts out for us, in her article). I thank Doug Boyd, digital initiatives editor, for charting our way toward a multimedia Review, and Troy Reeves, managing editor, for overseeing the myriad details related to files, codes, and formats needed to bring multimedia content to the journal. I also thank Lisa Feld, our production editor at Oxford University Press, and Patricia Thomas, executive editor, for their support as we advance this initiative.

Two articles on oral history and school desegregation turn our attention to the...