LGBTQ Oral History Books
Black. Queer. Southern. Women by
Drawn from the life narratives of more than seventy African American queer women who were born, raised, and continue to reside in the American South, this book powerfully reveals the way these women experience and express racial, sexual, gender, and class identities--all linked by a place where such identities have generally placed them on the margins of society. Using methods of oral history and performance ethnography, E. Patrick Johnson's work vividly enriches the historical record of racialized sexual minorities in the South and brings to light the realities of the region's thriving black lesbian communities. At once transcendent and grounded in place and time, these narratives raise important questions about queer identity formation, community building, and power relations as they are negotiated within the context of southern history. Johnson uses individual stories to reveal the embedded political and cultural ideologies of the self but also of the listener and society as a whole. These breathtakingly rich life histories show afresh how black female sexuality is and always has been an integral part of the patchwork quilt that is southern culture.
ISBN: 9781469641119Publication Date: 2018-10-22
Bodies of Evidence by
Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History is the first book to provide serious scholarly insight into the methodological practices that shape lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer oral histories. Each chapter pairs an oral history excerpt with an essay in which the oral historian addresses his or her methods and practices. With an afterword by John D'Emilio, this collection enables readers to examine the role memory, desire, sexuality, and gender play in documenting LGBTQ communities and cultures.The historical themes addressed include 1950s and '60s lesbian bar culture; social life after the Cuban revolution; the organization of transvestite social clubs in the U.S. midwest in the 1960s; Australian gay liberation activism in the 1970s; San Francisco electoral politics and the career of Harvey Milk; Asian American community organizing in pre-AIDS Los Angeles; lesbian feminist "sex war" cultural politics; 1980s and '90s Latina/o transgender community memory and activism in San Francisco; and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.The methodological themes include questions of silence, sexual self-disclosure and voyeurism, the intimacy between researcher and narrator, and the social and political commitments negotiated through multiple oral history interviews. The book also examines the production of comparative racial and sexual identities and the relative strengths of same-sexuality, cross-sexuality, and cross-ideology interviewing.
ISBN: 9780199876600Publication Date: 2012-01-03
Doing Oral History by
Doing Oral History is considered the premier guidebook to oral history, used by professional oral historians, public historians, archivists, and genealogists as a core text in college courses and throughout the public history community. Over the past decades, the development of digital audio and video recording technology has continued to alter the practice of oral history, making it even easier to produce quality recordings and to disseminate them on the Internet. This basic manual offers detailed advice on setting up an oral history project, conducting interviews, making video recordings, preserving oral history collections in archives and libraries, and teaching and presenting oral history.Using the existing Q&A format, the third edition asks new questions and augments previous answers with new material, particularly in these areas:1. Technology: As before, the book avoids recommending specific equipment, but weighs the merits of the types of technology available for audio and video recording, transcription, preservation, and dissemination. Information about web sites is expanded, and more discussion is provided about how other oral history projects have posted their interviews online.2. Teaching: The new edition addresses the use of oral history in online teaching. It also expands the discussion of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) with the latest information about compliance issues.3. Presentation: Once interviews have been conducted, there are many opportunities for creative presentation. There is much new material available on innovative forms of presentation developed over the last decade, including interpretive dance and other public performances.4. Legal considerations: The recent Boston College case, in which the courts have ruled that Irish police should have access to sealed oral history transcripts, has re-focused attention on the problems of protecting donor restrictions. The new edition offers case studies from the past decade.5. Theory and Memory: As a beginner's manual, Doing Oral History has not dealt extensively with theoretical issues, on the grounds that these emerge best from practice. But the third edition includes the latest thinking about memory and provides a sample of some of the theoretical issues surrounding oral sources. It will include examples of increased studies into catastrophe and trauma, and the special considerations these have generated for interviewers.6. Internationalism: Perhaps the biggest development in the past decade has been the spreading of oral history around the world, facilitated in part by the International Oral History Association. New oral history projects have developed in areas that have undergone social and political upheavals, where the traditional archives reflect the old regimes, particularly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The third edition includes many more references to non-U.S. projects that will still be relevant to an American audience.These changes make the third edition of Doing Oral History an even more useful tool for beginners, teachers, archivists, and all those oral history managers who have inherited older collections that must be converted to the latest technology.
ISBN: 9780199329342Publication Date: 2014-10-01
Week 1 (May 31-June 3)
Orientation Meeting for all participants (can be on TEAMS or in-person). Come prepared to discuss reading and the oral history interviews you watched or listened to.
Read pages 58-the end of the chapter of Maryland LGBTQ Historic Context Study, and this short history of the LGBTQ rights movement. When reading chapter 3 of Dr. Ferentinos' report, you can skim over sections that don't interest you, but be prepared to discuss this. One question to think about is what did you learn? What didn't you know before reading it?
Listen to an oral history from the ACT UP Oral History Project, or the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. You can watch part of several interviews or all of one. At the Veterans project, search for something to listen to and listen to a few minutes of results. Take note of good interviewing skills/questions as well as issues with the actual filming of the interview.
To look at other resources, click on the history page in this guide.
Week 3 (June13-17)
Attend workshop with Professor Jeremy Caplan on interviewing skills. This will be an online workshop on Friday, June 17th at 9:30.
Write a first draft of interview questions and send to Prof. Caplan for approval by Tuesday, June 21st.
Week 5 (June 27-July 1)
Interview informant
Begin transcribing the interview, rewriting your “setting the scene” paragraph, and identifying key clips (see 6th week for more info)
Attend group meeting (TBD)
Week 2 (June 6-10)
Attend workshop with Dr. Ferentinos on June 8th (9-2)
Read Information from the Library of Congress on Interviewing and conducting an oral history and the Oral History Association's Principles and Best Practices page.
Optional to watch After Stonewall film on LGBTQ recent history (You will need your CCBC username and password) You should be doing some connecting of what Dr. Ferentinos talks about and your informant's time on the CCBC campus.
Begin writing a paragraph “setting the scene” that will provide historic context for your interview. More information about this assignment will be provided in a separate document. Email to Jill and Christine for feedback when completed (by the end of Week 3).
Informant information will be given out
Week 4 (June 20-24)
Attend group technology training on Weds., June 22 from 10-12 in LIBR 112 on the Essex Campus.
Revise interview questions based on feedback from Prof. Caplan.
Week 6 (July 5-8)
Finish transcribing the interview.
Rewrite your “setting the scene” paragraph with your new knowledge from the interview and incorporating any feedback from your previous draft. Provide any historical context someone would need to understand the interview.
Identify key clips from your interview (3-7 minutes long) to highlight. Write down the time stamps and what is discussed at these time stamps that is worth highlighting.
Email transcript, your revised “setting the scene” paragraph, and the time stamps for the key clips from your interview to Jill and Christine.
Fill out Project Evaluation form and send to Jill.