Co-creating a “usable past” for LGBTQ+ people in the present.
Founded in 2014 by Professor Elspeth Brown and based at the University of Toronto Mississauga, the Collaboratory is a public and digital humanities research initiative. We preserve gay, queer, and trans life stories, using new methodologies in digital history, collaborative research, and archival practice.
Our Blog
The Collaboratory blog space features reflections on LGBTQ2+ public and digital history projects, creative interventions, and the people behind them. Follow the research team’s current activities, read our latest reflections from the field, browse our special interest series, or search our complete archive by content category.
LATEST POST
Hanlan’s Point: Sand, Butts and Topographical Intrigue
It’s finally sunny in Toronto and we all know what that means; the gays are about to descend on the chilly waters of Hanlan’s Point, Toronto’s historically queer nude beach on The Islands. But how did this glorious little gay cruising ground come to be such a storied space? Was it actually ground zero for the Canadian Pride movement? And are The Islands even islands?? Learn the answers to these pressing geographical questions and more about sand deposits than you ever wanted to know in this month’s installment of The Gays Did What Now?
RECENT POSTS
FEATURED SERIES
Curated by Collaboratory Oral Historian, Elio Colavito, this blog series ran from March to December of 2022. Posts featured a mix of external and internal contributors. As the series evolved, Colavito transitioned from the traditional blog format to reflective forewords introducing short video interviews with fellow scholars and community narrators. Each entry emphasizes critical reflections on queer and trans* oral histories beyond the scope of their focus in time, shifting analysis to the multiple meanings that arise out of historical research, community archiving, and public history.
ALL POSTS
Browse our complete archive of blog posts.
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