Dr. Alexander Freund
UWinnipeg’s history professors Dr. Alexander Freund and Nolan Reilly have co-edited a landmark history book. Reilly and Freund are the co-directors of UWinnipeg’s Oral History Centre.
The Canadian Oral History Reader, co-edited with Kristina Llewellyn and published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, is the first reader that brings together the best in Canadian oral history. This book is the first international reader that includes Canadian contributions. Another aspect that sets The Canadian Oral History Reader apart from other collections on the topic is that it includes several articles discussing oral history in the context of indigenous history projects.
“This book is very much in line with our goal at the Oral History Centre to create a national dialogue about oral history, to help establish best practices specific for Canada, and to enable Canadians to create oral history projects at the highest level of excellence,” explains Freund.
There is a book launch planned at the Oral History Centre for October 2015.
Freund, who also holds the Chair in German-Canadian Studies at UWinnipeg, furthermore published a second book. Entangling Migration History: Borderlands and Transnationalism in the United States and Canada is a collection essays co-edited by Freund and Ben Bryce. This collection brings together three new strands in historiography to broaden the understanding of migration history. Contributors were asked to use the frameworks developed by comparative history, transnational history and borderland studies. The essay collection explores how migrants in different national and regional contexts along borderlands along the US-Canada and the US-Mexico established transnational communities and how national governments attempted to contain migrations within national borders or to keep migrants outside of their national borders.
