Oral History Master of Arts - Incite at Columbia University

OHMA is the first and only program of its kind in the United States, a one-year interdisciplinary degree training students to record and amplify first-person stories using a range of technological, creative, and analytical tools.

OHMA teaches oral history as a practice of co-creating dialogic, critical conversations about the past, in the present, which are oriented towards the future. 

Oral history as an academic research practice has deep roots at Columbia, stretching back to the founding of the Oral History Research Office in 1948 by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist Allan Nevins. OHMA builds on that tradition of producing oral histories as primary source documents for the historian’s archive while also centering creative production, social science inquiry, the oral history practices of Indigenous people, and the many traditions of collective critical life history analysis, such as popular education, consciousness raising, and testimonio.

Many OHMA students work at the intersections of the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and past projects have taken the form of academic and creative essays, film and audio documentaries, performances, exhibits, and multimedia websites. OHMA students also have access to research and travel funding, elective courses taught anywhere within Columbia University, and exclusive oral history internship opportunities.

In addition to educating graduate students, OHMA hosts a vibrant public programming schedule each term. To learn more, visit Oral History Master of Arts.