Tag: LGBT History

A “Desire for History” at UChicago

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How does queer studies engage with the archive? Since 2007, students and faculty affiliated with the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality have worked to build archival collections documenting the experiences of women and LGBTQ individuals and communities at UChicago. This talk gives a brief history of the project’s origins in feminist and women’s history, and addresses what it means to once-marginalized communities to have a place in the University archives.

Last month, I had the chance to speak about our work creating a LGBTQ archive on campus for the University of Chicago’s annual Humanities Day celebrations. Watch, learn, and contribute to our project.

“Collecting on the Edges” at Big Berks 2014

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I’m delighted that a panel I organized for the 2014 Berkshire Conference on Women’s History (aka the Berks) has been accepted. Collecting on the Edges: Gender and Sexuality in the University Archive will feature not only our efforts at the University of Chicago to build new archival collections in gender and sexuality, but also the work of graduate students, faculty, and librarians at repositories including the Women & Leadership Archives at Loyola University Chicago, the Pride Library at the University of Western Ontario, and the Transgender Archives at UVic.

Through collection profiles and explorations of queer and archival theory, we will highlight how sexuality has been hidden in established University archives, and can become a new collections priority at our institutions. In doing so, we hope to explore issues of public engagement in LGBT history, the role of archives in mediating knowledge of this history, and the challenges and opportunities of partnering with University repositories.

See you in Toronto next May!

Summer Oral History Project News

Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

This month the Closeted/Out on the Quadrangles Project, which I supervise, recorded its 40th oral history interview since September 2012.

To showcase the ongoing work of the project, we’re starting to collect our thoughts on tumblr. Over time, we’ll use it as a space to share findings and highlight the courses, programs, undergraduate student work, and public history stories associated with the larger world of history of sexuality research.

Follow us here.

Bodies of Evidence | Nan Boyd on Oral History

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Bodies of EvidenceAs part of my work for the Closeted/Out project, I have been organizing a series of workshops that bring visiting scholars to campus to join us in ongoing conversations about the role of gender and sexuality studies in public history theory and practice. Previous talks have featured Jennifer Brier, Associate Professor of History and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago (and a recent NEA grant recipient for her Mobile Museum!), and Tim Stewart-Winter, Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers-Newark, where he is also a steering committee member of the Queer Newark project. This Thursday, May 30 at noon, we’re thrilled to welcome Nan Alamilla Boyd, Professor of Women and Gender Studies at San Francisco State University, to discuss her recent edited volume, Bodies of Evidence: the Practice of Queer Oral History (Oxford UP, 2012).

For more information on Professor Boyd’s visit (and to RSVP), visit the CSGS Event Calendar.

Women’s History in a Digital World

Monica L. Mercado1 Comment

Last month I took part in the inaugural Women’s History in the Digital World (#WHDigWrld) conference of The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education at Bryn Mawr College.

My paper, On Equal Terms? The Stakes of Archiving Women’s and LGBT History in the Digital Era, and many others have been archived in the Greenfield Digital Center repository and can be viewed online here. I’m looking forward to revisiting the many of the talks:

Michelle Moravec created a Storify to archive conference tweets and reflected on our weekend at her blog, History in the City.

For more on the conference, see Arden Kirkland’s post Women’s History, and…Metadata?!

“A Desire for History” in The University of Chicago Magazine

Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

Given my various research interests, I’m thrilled to see The University of Chicago Magazine feature on my LGBT history course paired with an article on Catholic women’s history in The Core supplement for Jan-Feb/13.