Skip Navigation


Oral History Review Advance Access originally published online on September 13, 2009
Oral History Review 2009 36(2):255-260; doi:10.1093/ohr/ohp050
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
36/2/255    most recent
ohp050v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Abelmann, N.
Right arrow Articles by Miller, P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oral History Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, Please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

What is StoryCorps, Anyway?

Nancy Abelmann, Susan Davis, Cara Finnegan and Peggy Miller

Nancy Abelmann is the Harry E. Preble Professor of Anthropology, Asian American Studies, and East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, Humanities, Arts, and Related Fields, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL. E-mail: nabelman@illinois.edu
Susan Davis is a professor of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL. E-mail: sgdavis@uiuc.edu
Cara Finnegan is an associate professor of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL. E-mail: caraf@illinois.edu
Peggy Miller is a professor of the Department of Communication and the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL. E-mail: pjm@uiuc.edu

"LISTENING IS AN ACT OF LOVE: A CELEBRATION OF AMERICAN LIFE FROM THE STORYCORPS PROJECT." Edited and with an Introduction by Dave Isay. New York: The Penguin Press, 2007. 284 pp. Hardbound, $24.95; Softbound, $15.00.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This review draws on conversations the four coauthors had about the StoryCorps phenomenon, which we appreciate as a provocative, contemporary example of the public use of oral narratives. Like many readers, we came to Listening Is an Act of Love through National Public Radio's Friday morning StoryCorps segment. Our discussions were inspired by: the weekly story broadcast's emotional "driveway moments," our knowledge of the Corps’ dedicated facilitators, the public's active participation in the traveling recording booths, and the announcement that StoryCorps interviews would be archived in the Library of Congress. What, we wondered, might StoryCorps disclose about the public uses of oral stories in the twenty-first century. As we met, Listening was published and added to our fascination with StoryCorps as a multiply-mediated phenomenon. We use this review to explore issues that, we think, reach beyond StoryCorps’ print form.

The "we" used throughout this review is collective, but the views . . . [Full Text of this Article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?