This oral history interview is an intimate conversation between two people, both of whom have generously agreed to share this recording with Oral History Summer School, and with you. Please listen in the spirit with which this was shared.
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The interview with Joan Gellert was conducted at the Hudson Area Library. Joan is a 75 year old who grew up in Queens and Hillside NY; had a career as an elementary school teacher and nursery school owner; and is the spouse of local landlord Phil Gellert (they have five children). Joan spoke about her transition from city to rural living; her experiences in school and realizing she wanted to be a teacher; working for Hudson Reads program at Hudson Middle School; children’s different experiences in Hudson vs rural areas; changing perspectives on the value of higher education generationally; respecting difference in her children; helping her husband in his office; the importance of continuity for community. Subjects included education; language diversity; Hudson school system; limits on low income housing in Hudson. This interview might be of interest to people interested in education.
I am a fifty-year old university professor of film and media studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. My graduate training was at New York University. I am interested in oral history to interview people in two historical realms: experimental/independent film and video art, and higher education film and media instruction from the 1950s to the present. I’m interested in how the everyday textures and materials and experiences that shape our lives can be captured through oral history recording.
Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”