Applications for our spring 2025 internship, HIST593, are open.
How to apply:
Please read carefully below about the focus of the 2025 internship course and how to apply. Deadline to apply is Friday, November 15, 2024 by noon EST.
The Southern Oral History Program (SOHP) is currently accepting applications for our spring 2025 undergraduate internship. The SOHP’s internship program provides experiential education in the intellectual, practical, and curatorial work of oral history. Students must apply for the program; upon acceptance, they will be enrolled in HIST593 for three credit hours. In fall 2024, the internship will focus specifically on the ethics, methodology, and practical application of oral history fieldwork. The course will meet at the Center for the Study of the American South on Fridays from 10:10 am-1 pm during the spring 2024 semester.
Students will work as researchers, collaborators, and curators with the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP). They will learn about oral history as both a method and a tradition. This semester will focus on labor history, particularly through engagement with the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW). Students will explore oral history’s relationship with labor movements and worker rights, examining the intersection of labor with race, gender, class, and other identities in the US South. Over the semester, they will explore oral history’s role in shaping narratives of work, organizing, and economic justice, as well as its impact on broader labor and social justice movements. In the process, they will tell a history of USSW and its context within the labor movements. Students will learn the basics of public history, its connections to the academy, and its goals as a separate field. Finally, they will learn digital humanities basics and learn to use digital humanities software to craft their own exhibit pages. Previous classes have focused on Asian and Asian American experiences in the American South; the history of the Center for the Study of the American South and Southern Oral History Program; Public Health; and the Long Civil Rights Movement.
Throughout the semester, students will create and use in-depth oral history interviews as well as survey scholarship that effectively uses oral history research.
Finally, we will consider not only how interviews can be used to explore what happened in the past but also how memories of the past are constructed in the present as people give meaning to their lives through story and dialogue with others.
Submit a one-page letter of interest, a resume, and contact information for one faculty reference by November 15th, 2024 email to Phil MacDonald at ptmacdon@unc.edu with the subject line "SOHP 2025 Spring Internship [your last name]"
Example: SOHP 2025 Spring MacDonald
Questions to consider answering within your letter of interest are:
- Describe your interest in oral history
- How would an internship at SOHP apply to your studies and future endeavors?
- What skills and experiences do you bring to the table that would be beneficial to the SOHP?