Oral History | LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory

All posts filed under: Oral History

“histories ‘from below’”: A Conversation with Dr. Lucas Wilson

October 24, 2024

In this conversation with Dr. Lucas Wilson, a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto Mississauga, we dive into his bold shift from Holocaust studies to queer history. Luke shares how his personal journey—from surviving conversion therapy at an evangelical university to embracing his queer identity—now fuels his groundbreaking research into white Christian nationalism and its impact on LGBTQ+ communities, offering a powerful voice against oppressive systems.

Nancy Irwin At Home: An Interview with an Icon

July 31, 2024

by Atticus Hawk

Activist Histories / Community-based Oral History / Kink Cultures / Lesbian History / Oral History / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

Nancy Irwin is the dyke you read about in queer history classes and the woman you always wished had a hand in raising you. World traveller, biker, writer, raconteur extraordinaire; Nancy sits down with The Gays Did What Now? for a tender reminiscence of dyke life in 1980s Toronto and her first girlfriend, the “very experienced lesbian,” Shirley. Listen to the audio or read the transcript for a riveting story of Nancy before she was the international dyke icon she is today.

Queer & Disabled Activisms in Tkaronto Project: An interview with Creative Scholar Megan Ingram

April 5, 2024

by Alisha Stranges

Academia / Activist Histories / Archiving Oral History / Collaboratory News / Community-based Oral History / Disability / Oral History / Public Humanities / Queer History / Trans History

Welcoming Megan Ingram, our inaugural “Creative Scholar in Virtual Residence.” Part scholarship and part cultural production, Megan is developing a new documentary project, using oral history interviews conducted with community activists working at the intersections of disability, queerness, healthcare access, housing, and poverty.

Special Issue Release! Trans Histories by Trans Historians

October 20, 2023

by Jamey Jesperson and Chris Aino Pihlak

Academia / Oral History / Publishing / Trans History

Trans histories by trans historians are important. But with only a handful of trans history books and not a single academic journal dedicated to trans pasts, there are vast temporal, thematic, and geographical gaps in our histories. As two trans feminine graduate students in history at the University of Victoria, we set out to change that. In the summer of 2021, we took up editorship of our department’s peer-reviewed, graduate-student journal, The Graduate History Review, […]

NOW OPEN! The Pussy Palace: An Instagram Story

June 12, 2023

by Alisha Stranges

Collaboratory News / Lesbian History / Oral History / Pussy Palace Project / Queer History / Trans History

If you find yourself in Toronto’s East end this Pride season, drop by Gallery 1265 at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) to experience The Pussy Palace: An Instagram Story. Commissioned by UTSC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office and the Positive Space Committee, this interactive, self-led exhibit blends digital art, narrative text, and interview soundbites from the Collaboratory’s Pussy Palace Oral History Project, immersing patrons in an “average night” at the Palace. The Pussy Palace […]

Coding the Pussy Palace Oral Histories: NVivo for the Digital Humanities

December 16, 2021

by Emily Mastragostino

Collaboratory News / Interview Coding / Oral History / Pussy Palace Project

WHAT IS INTERVIEW CODING? Coding is the process of organizing data in preparation for analysis. Through coding we identify common themes that allow us to compare and contrast experiences, perspectives, and descriptions from our data. Fundamentally, coding helps us figure out what is salient across stories and most important to the narrators. It’s a fairly straightforward process! Coding involves identifying, creating, and updating themes, as well as sorting data into those themes. Among the Pussy Palace oral histories, common themes can be as simple as descriptions of the carpet or more complex like individuals’ experience of care at […]