The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Oral Public History

by Alessandro Portelli

Portelli offers a new and challenging approach to oral history, with an interdisciplinary and multicultural perspective. Examining cultural conflict and communication between social groups and classes in industrial societies, he identifies the way individuals strive to create memories in order to make sense of their lives, and evaluates the impact of the fieldwork experience on the consciousness of the researcher. By recovering the value of the story-telling experience, Portelli's work makes delightful reading for the specialist and non-specialist alike.

Genres: History, Oral History, Theory, European History, Nonfiction, Italy

358 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1990

About the author

Alessandro Portelli, nato a Roma nel 1942, è considerato tra i fondatori della storia orale. Professore di Letteratura angloamericana all’Università «La Sapienza» di Roma, ha fondato e presiede il circolo Gianni Bosio per la conoscenza critica e la presenza alternativa delle culture popolari. Collabora con la Casa della Memoria e della Storia di Roma e con «il manifesto», «Liberazione» e «l’Unità».

Reviews

[Riley Sutherland · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book on the theory of history. Period. By walking us through his oral histories, Portelli walks us through WHY people choose to deliberately change temporalities (horizontal and vertical) in their recollections of traumatic events. He also shares the political challenges of oral history: for instance, what does it mean to interview, say, fascists? Will that alienate you, as a liberal revolutionary, from your own networks? How can you balance political, professional, and personal relationships with ethnographic research? As I tackle an ethnographic/historical study of my hometime, I am going to keep thinking about this every day...

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angelo Ventura, ‘an arbitrary use of oral sources, without controls and scientific guarantees, allows them to be used instrumentally to serve political ends.’ These words were a warning against young, activist, ‘barefoot’ oral historians.

Cool - I am now motivated to start my oral history interviews - I want to use them for those ends and I guess I'm young - although I would add that I do wear shoes :)

Edit: well technically socks right now - but ykwim.

[Ariel Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a slow read, but very interesting perspective on oral history.

[Alexandra Smithie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually amazing book

[Alex Minovici · Rating 5 out of 5]

he is everything

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though it doesn't quite reach the heights of a perfect rating due to its unnerving HUGE amount of constant information after information after information, this book deserves credit for its effort in presenting complex concepts in a fathomable manner. It might have some shortcomings, and maybe the author could’ve taken some time to breathe, but its contribution to shedding light on something important and rarely spoken about.

[Gretel]

I did like being able to read this book and find all these sections that are repeatably referred to in everyone else's work. Though the first half of the book was more relevant than the later.