>
> Can anyone recommend a book on how to conduct oral history interviews?  I am
> looking for something that would be readily available (read immediately) in
> the Washington DC area.  Please respond directly to me as I am not a list
> member.  Thank you for your assistance.
>
> Janet Dombrowski, Reference Librarian
> National Geographic Society
> [log in to unmask]
> 202-775-7879
 
If you get a response on this, could you please forward titles to me?
Wish you had been around when I was a Peace Corps Vol in Senegal ('73-'75)...
Lots of interesting material with the Griots there...
Now I'm using some of the methodology involved as a hypnotherapist...
come to think of it, though perhaps less linear than what you're
looking for, THE HYPNOTIC BRAIN by Peter Brown might be of considerable
use in helping you to enter into the process of face-to-face oral
communications... the actual trance involved, the bicameral experience.
 
    "Hypnotic abilities are basic human abilities. They originate in our
    species'   unprecedented   capacity   for   subtle   and   continual
    face-to-face  communication. Our evolutionary path and even the very
    structure  of  the  brain  have  been  profoundly  influenced by the
    process of communication." (Peter Brown, 1991)
 
    "Poetry  and music were important tools  to heighten and enhance the
    rhythms  of  communication. In the  absence  of written records, the
    rhythm  and imagery of poetic  devices allowed important information
    to be retained in living memory..." (Peter Brown, 1991)
 
    "...A  growing  body of convincing  evidence, however, suggests that
    speech  as we know it was  not anatomically possible until about one
    hundred  thousand years ago...Humankind began  to evolve long before
    the spoken word. Speech added a whole new diminsion to communication
    and  probably stimulated the beginnings of cultural development, but
    it   did   so   by  augmenting,   not   by   replacing,  an  already
    well-established   communications   style.  The   human   brain  was
    neurologically  committed by its evolutionary  success to its talent
    for   exquisitely   sensitive,  ongoing,   and   flexible  nonverbal
    communication." (Peter Brown, 1991)
 
     The  folk  society  (as  defined  by  Redfield,  1947)  was  small,
     non-literate,  homogenous, with a strong  sense of group solidarity
     which...  "made use of the newfound  ability to speak combined with
     our  ability  for  face-to-face communication.  The  growth  of the
     association  areas provided the cerebral basis for elaborating this
     combination  into  radically new  patterns...patterns  based on the
     common  legacy of the primate family. Our capacity for face-to-face
     communication  and for synchronizing interactions  was the basis of
     civilization  until  the  development  of  literacy." (Peter Brown,
     1991)
 
     "The  evidence  shows that the  brain  evolved primarily for social
     communication,  of  which hypnosis is  a  special form. Through the
     interactions  of  our  earliest relatives,  the  brain developed to
     adapt  to  a  world of  highly  specialized  communication (Steele,
     1989). It is structured in order to be influenced by and to express
     face-to-face  communication.  All  communications  in  general, and
     hypnosis in particular, derives from those basic abilities."
     (Peter Brown, 1991)
 
     "...hypnosis   is   a  highly   specialized  form  of  face-to-face
     communication.  The  hypnotherapist monitors  the hypnotic state by
     means  of facial cues, and those cues  may be important in the self
     monitoring  of  the  hypnotic  subject.  Face-to-face communication
     emphasises  the  parallel  activity  of  conscious  and unconscious
     processes  as they are interwoven  in communication."
     (Peter Brown, 1991)
 
      "The  language  of  face-to-face  conversation  is  the  basic and
      primary  use of language, all others being best described in terms
      of  their  manner  of  deviation  from  that  base."
      (Charles  J. Fillmore, 1974)
 
      "Moreover,   face-to-face   communication  is   a  highly  complex
      neurologic   task   that  provides  a   glimpse   of  the  dynamic
      organization  of  the  brain.  That  organization demonstrates the
      pervasive  nature of automatic  unconscious processes that coexist
      with conscious awareness." (Peter Brown, 1991)
 
 
Good luck in your work!
Hope this isn't too far off the track for you...
--
Arthur Brett Breitwieser, C.H.T.                         ([log in to unmask])
Director, The Hermes Hypnotherapy Project
Curate, The Sanctuary of the Soul (The American Fellowship Church)