Oral History – Monica L. Mercado, Ph.D.

#ClosetedOut Exhibition Opening at the University of Chicago

March 26, 2015June 28, 2015 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

I’m thrilled to return to the University of Chicago on Wednesday, April 1, for the Gala Opening of Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles: A History of LGBTQ Life at the University of Chicago, curated by Lauren Stokes, and based on the oral history project I coordinated from 2011-2014. If you’re in Chicago, please join us at the opening event, visit the exhibit during its run at Regenstein Library, and save the date for our Alumni Weekend curators panel in June. Details below:

April 1 Gala Opening invitation and RSVP
UChicago News story, “Exhibition Documents History of LGBTQ Life at UChicago” (March 25, 2015)
Alumni Weekend invitation and curators panel details

It’s gratifying to see this research come to life, and I look forward to celebrating the generosity of our 95 oral history narrators, the many undergraduate students who worked as research assistants and oral history interviewers on the project, and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, which trusted us to make history.

Writing around the Web

November 3, 2014November 9, 2014 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

I spent the middle of October back in the Midwest at the Oral History Association annual meeting and the Loyola University Chicago conference Crossings and Dwellings: Restored Jesuits, Women Religious, American Experience, 1814-2014. Read more at the following sites:

‘Gender and Generations’: Oral Histories of Colleges and Universities at OHA 2014 for Educating Women: the blog of The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education at Bryn Mawr College (10/16/14)

Crossings and Dwellings: Mundelein College and the Legacy of Catholic Women’s Higher Education in Chicago for Religion in American History (10/29/14)

Women of Faith: A Conversation with Mary Beth Fraser Connolly

September 8, 2014September 5, 2014 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

As I wrote in my dissertation acknowledgements (coming soon to a ProQuest database near you), my research is indebted to the interdisciplinary circles of scholars working on American Catholic history in Chicago and beyond, and I have benefited from the friendship and community of a terrific group of young scholars in Catholic Studies, one of whom, Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, was kind enough to talk with me recently about her new book on the Sisters of Mercy.

Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of a Religious Community (Fordham, 2014) is a sweeping institutional history that, in many ways, revives my interest in the genre of institutional history.

To read my conversation with Mary Beth about research, writing, and women religious, visit Religion in American History: Women of Faith: A Conversation with Mary Beth Fraser Connolly.

Upcoming Engagements (or, Where to Find Me)

September 1, 2014September 1, 2014 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

It’s September, and with the last of my summer travel behind me, I’m starting to refocus on the mission of the Greenfield Digital Center and getting our work out into the world. So there’s a new page on this site: Upcoming Engagements. I might be talking about oral history, social media, and/or the digital humanities in a city near you over the next year, so let’s connect!

A “Desire for History” at UChicago

November 30, 2013January 8, 2015 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

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:

A “Desire for History” at UChicago

November 30, 2013January 8, 2015 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

Summer Oral History Project News

June 26, 2013August 28, 2013 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.

Bodies of Evidence | Nan Boyd on Oral History

May 28, 2013May 28, 2013 Monica L. MercadoLeave a comment

As 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).