Course Schedule
This course will be fully remote and “hybrid” in the sense that it will involve both synchronous (where we all meet together via Zoom) and asynchronous (where you work independently or in pairs). Each week will have a similar structure, as follows:
Mondays: Theory Day – on Mondays we will meet synchronously via Zoom to discuss the relationship between oral history as a method and queer and trans theory and politics.
Tuesdays: Asynchronous Listening/Viewing Session – we will NOT have synchronous class on Tuesdays, but instead each week you will be assigned to listen to or view an oral history in its entirety, making notes on the interview techniques, question style, approach to issues of identity, and overall effect, and flagging clips to share with the class on Thursday.
Wednesdays: Community Experts – on Wednesdays we will meet synchronously via Zoom and will be joined by community experts, who will present on their work and be available for our questions.
Thursdays: Praxis Day – Fridays will be our practice-focused day, where we meet briefly together via Zoom to learn about oral history methods and then move to asynchronous practice, in pairs, where you will work on aspects of oral history collection, from preparation to execution to transcription and description of interviews.
Week 1
Date | Mode | In Class | Due |
Wed Oct 28th | Synchronous Zoom | Introduction to the Class | |
Thurs Oct 29 | Synchronous Zoom | Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, “Telling Tales: Oral History and the Construction of Pre-Stonewall Lesbian History. Radical History Review 1 May 1995 (62): 59–79. Nan Alamilla Boyd, “Elizabeth Kennedy’s Oral History Intervention,” Feminist Formations (Winter 2012) |
Week 2
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
11/2/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Queer Theory and Oral History | Kevin Murphy et al, “What Makes Queer Oral History Different?” Oral History Review, 43 no. 1 (April 2016) Nan Alamilla Boyd, “Who is the Subject?: Queer Theory meets Oral History,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 17 no. 2 (2008): 177–189. |
11/3/20 | Asynchronous | Listening/Viewing Queer and Trans Oral History | |
11/4/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Guest Speaker: Aisling Quigley and Brooke Schmolke, Macalester Digital Resource Center | |
11/5/20 | Synchronous Zoom | The Scope of the Project Researching Potential Narrators Introducing the TTOHP Workflow | Valerie Yow, “Introduction to the In-Depth Interview” |
Week 3
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
11/9/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Queer of Color Critique, Performance Studies, and Oral History | E. Patrick Johnson, “Put a Little Honey in My Sweet Tea: Oral History as Quare Performance,” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly vol. 44 no. 3-4 (2016): 51-67. |
11/10/20 | Asynchronous | Listening/Viewing Queer and Trans Oral History | Listen to Transcripts, a podcast of the Tretter Trans Oral History Project |
11/11/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Guest Speaker: Rachel Mattson, Curator of the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota | |
11/12/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Researching Potential Narrators What Constitutes “Trans Activists” for the TTOHP Preparing the Interview Guide | Valerie Yow, “Preparation for the Interviewing Project,” in Recording Oral History Due: Initial Ideas for Narrators |
Week 4
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
11/16/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Anne Cvetkovich “AIDS Activism and the Oral History Archive,” Scholar & Feminist Online Jennifer Brier, “I’m Still Surviving: Oral Histories of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Chicago,” Oral History Review, vol. 45 no. 1 (April 2018). | |
11/17/20 | Asynchronous | Listening/Viewing Queer and Trans Oral History | Listen: ACT/UP Oral History Project Explore: I’m Still Surviving |
11/18/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Guest Speaker: Katie Batza, Oral Historian and Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Kansas | |
11/19/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Communication and transparency Consent Technology Researching the narrator | Yow, “Interviewing Techniques” from Recording Oral History Due: First Practice Interview Due: Contact Potential Narrators |
Week 5
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
11/23/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Challenging “The Trans Narrative” and Trans Narrative Storytelling | Dean Spade, “Mutilating Gender” Michael David Franklin, “Calculating Risk: History of Medicine, Transgender Oral History, and the Institutional Review Board,” from Queer Twin Cities |
11/24/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Guest Speaker: Myra Billund-Phibbs, Project Assistant for the Tretter Trans Oral History Project | Read the NYC Trans Oral History Project Interviewer Handbook Due: Second Practice Interview Due: Begin Conducting Interviews |
11/25/20 | No Class | ||
11/26/20 | No Class |
Week 6
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
11/30/20 | Synchronous Zoom | The Politics of Invisibility | Darnell Moore et al, “A Community’s Response to the Problem of Invisibility: the Queer Newark Oral History Project,” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, vol 1 no. 2 (Summer 2014) Syrus Marcus Ware, “All Power to All People? Black LGBTTI2QQ Activism, Remembrance, and Archiving in Toronto,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly vol. 4 no. 2 (2017): 17-180. |
12/1/20 | Asynchronous | Listening/Viewing Queer and Trans Oral History | Listen: Queer Newark Oral History Project |
12/2/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Guest Speaker: Blu Buchanan, Founder of the b. trans oral history project, PhD Candidate at UC Davis | |
12/3/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Silence and Self-Determination Traps in Trans Interviewing | Kathryn Anderson and Dana C. Jack, “Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and Analyses” Due: Conduct Interviews This Week |
Week 7
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
12/7/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Challenging the Progress Narrative | Jason Ruiz, “Queering Oral History: Reflections on the Origins of the Twin Cities GLBT Oral History Project,” from Queer Twin Cities Kevin Murphy, “Gay Was Good: Progress, Homonormativity, and Oral History” |
12/8/20 | Asynchronous | Listening/Viewing Queer and Trans Oral History | |
12/9/20 | Synchronous Zoom | TBA | TBA |
12/10/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Transcription, Controlled Vocabulary, Description, and Trans Politics | Katherine Fobear, “Do You Understand? Unsettling Interpretative Authority in Feminist Oral History,” Journal of Feminist Scholarship 10 (Spring 2016): 61-77. Readings TBA Due: Finish Conducting Interviews |
Week 8
Date | Mode | In-Class | Due |
12/14/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Neoliberalism and the Visibility Trap | Tourmaline, Eric Stanley, Johanna Burton, Introduction to Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility Alexander Freund, “Under Storytelling’s Spell? Oral History in a Neoliberal Age,” Oral History Review, 42 no. 1 (2015) |
12/15/20 | Synchronous Zoom | Last Class! | Last Class! Due: Final Blog Post Due: Final Metadata and Description |