HIST 305 - Telling Queer and Trans Stories: Oral History as Method and Practice

Cross-Listed as WGSS 305

Much about mainstream narratives of gender transgression are determined by powerful, cis-dominated institutions, still even to this day: the media, schools, police, the law, doctors and psychiatrists. These are institutions structured by a racialized, heteronormative gender binary, and for whom trans people pose a problem to be managed. Oral history offers the possibility for trans people to tell their own stories, and, in doing so, give more nuanced, complex analysis of identity, activism, and of the intersectional operations of systems of power. Oral history also makes room for the complex interplay of joy, playfulness, grief, anxiety, and connection that makes queer and trans life so valuable. In this project-based and community engaged course, students will have hands on experience working with an archive of queer and trans oral histories in the context of the pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. Working closely with our community partner, the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, we will learn about oral history methodology and interview techniques, and then have the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews, develop audio or video projects using extant oral histories, and contribute to an online archive of queer and trans oral history. Every year. (4 Credits)