Oral Histories

I am an experienced oral history interviewer. Two of my oral history projects are collected with the National Library of Australia: Reshaping Australian Manufacturing and Makers, Manufacturers & Designers. Between 2011-2014 I led the NSW Government Printing Office Oral History Project as part of my PhD research.

I am regularly involved in public forums and discussions regarding oral history methods and interpretation, with Oral History NSW, the Australian Centre for Public History and the History Council of NSW.

Relevant Publications, re: oral history theory & practice:

Stein, JA, 2022, ‘The Historian as Document Producer: A Critical Reflection on the Production of Oral History Timed Summaries’, in K. Biber, P. Vaughan & T. Luker (eds), Law’s Documents: Materiality, Authority, Aesthetics, Routledge, London.

Stein, JA 2021, Industrial Craft in Australia: Oral Histories of Creativity & Survival (Palgrave Macmillan).

Stein, JA, and Rowden, E, 2019, ‘Architecture from the Inside: Challenging the Myths of Architectural History through the Oral Histories of Maitland Gaol’, in Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research, in Janina Gosseye, Naomi Stead and Deborah van der Plaat (eds), Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 28-49.

Stein, JA 2016, Hot Metal: Material Culture & Tangible Labour (Manchester University Press).

Stein, JA 2014, ‘The co-construction of spatial memory: Enriching architectural histories of “ordinary” buildings’, Fabrications, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 178-97. DOI: 1080/10331867.2014.961222.

Stein, JA 2013, ‘“That was a posed photo”: Reflections on the process of combining oral histories with institutional photographs’, Oral History Association of Australia Journal, vol. 35, pp. 49–57.