May 12-26, 2025 Open to university students (for credit course) and community members Call for applications COHDS Summer Institute 2025 Storytelling, as both an art and a practice, occupies a central role in many cultures. The evocative power of oral history has made a major impact in the worlds of public history, museum/curatorial practice, and […]
In this interactive performance-workshop, Brett Davidson explores listening not just as a personal practice, but as a vital political act. Combining elements of storytelling, theory, dialogue, audio, and visual imagery, the session invites participants to reflect on the ways listening shapes democracy, public life, and our collective ability to imagine change. Drawing from his extensive […]
With Lea Kabiljo English This workshop will provide you with some of the fundamentals in the interdisciplinary field of oral history. Participants will learn about an oral history approach to interviewing, ethics in research, and the many ways that oral histories are shared with the public. This workshop is strongly recommended to all new affiliates, […]
With Gabryelle Iaconetti and Liam Devitt The workshop and discussion will offer reflections on methodological and ethical approaches to undertaking queer oral history in research. How does one conduct oral history interviews with queer narrators? What is particular about queer oral history? How has oral testimony been significant in the figuration of queer histories? This […]
With Frankie Ray In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn the essentials of setting up and recording oral history interviews with both video and audio. We will cover how to prepare a recording environment, assemble and test a recording rig, and troubleshoot common technical challenges. Beyond capturing the interview itself, participants will gain practical […]
With the DANC 202 Cohort: Charlotte Bisson, Nathaniel Cancela Edsell, Florence Cross, Homeyra Esmaeilzadeh, Leonardo Giraldo Rodriguez, Anaïs Girard, Elle Golfinopoulos, Sophie Groleau-Rouleau, Nasiriyah Hamilton, Joselande Josue, Adaline Kuranko, Camille Moon, Fredlyne Pierre, Pooya Ratnam, Amy Staples, Kaiya Thomas-Bynoe, and Cameron Weaver. Join us for an afternoon of dance as students from the Department […]
With Kelann Currie-Williams This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to using Stories Matter— a free, open-source oral history database software that allows for the archiving of digital video and audio materials, and enables oral historians to annotate, analyze, and evaluate audio and video recordings of interviews. First developed in 2010 at COHDS, this second […]
With Nalini Mohabir Take part in an active listening session with Nalini Mohabir, inspired by artist Joyce Joumaa’s SIGHTINGS 45 installation. Together we will listen to previously restricted audio excerpts from a 1969 rally in the Hall Building’s mezzanine at the outset of the Sir George Williams Affair. Mohabir, associate professor in Concordia’s Department of Geography, […]
With Sara Lucas “Sounds of Home, Sounds of Elsewheres” is a community choir project led by Sara Lucas, open to COHDS members who want to sing together beyond their research. The repertoire will explore storytelling through song, focusing on how personal and community histories are shared and passed down. The project embraces the idea that […]
With Steven High The workshop will invite you to engage deeply with a videotaped interview of a Rwandan genocide survivor recorded as part of the Montreal Life Stories project. We will explore different ways of interpreting an interview recording and transcription including narrative analysis, life course visualization, analysis of emotion, etc. We will send the interview […]
With Cassandra Marsillo This workshop will centre on making two different types of pasta shapes and accompanying recipes typical to Molise, a small region in Southern Italy with a big, historic presence in Montreal. Cavatelli and taccozze are integral parts of Molisan winter remedies. The recipes used for this workshop were collected through oral […]
With Steven High This workshop will introduce you to ways of interpreting the underlying interviewer-interviewee dynamic that structures the oral history recording. It is an interview after all. Yet we tend to be so focused on the words spoken by our interview partners that we submerge the underlying dialogic that is its structuring force. Steven […]
With Frankie Ray This workshop provides a hands-on introduction to the principles and practices of recording high-quality audio in a range of real-world contexts. Participants will gain practical experience setting up and working with multiple microphone types, including lavaliers, shotgun microphones, podcasting microphones, and built-in camera audio systems. Through guided demonstrations and exercises, the […]
With Hannah Pinilla In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore the intersections of storytelling, music, and cooking through the preparation of alegría, a traditional coconut and panela sweet closely associated with Afro-Colombian palenqueras in Cartagena. Rooted in the history of San Basilio de Palenque—the first free Black town in the Americas—alegría is more than a confection; it is […]
Avec Lea Kabiljo Cet atelier vous permettra d’explorer certains des éléments fondamentaux dans le domaine interdisciplinaire de l’histoire orale. Les participants découvriront une approche aux entretiens spécifique à l’histoire orale, l’éthique de la recherche et les nombreuses façons dont les histoires orales sont partagées avec le public. Cet atelier est fortement recommandé à tous nos […]
With Kelann Currie-Williams and Derek Garcia Much of oral history interview preparation rightly (and evidently) revolves around the audio and visual recording of the event. But what happens when the narrator brings their personal archives into the interview space? Drawing from Monica Muñoz Martinez’s “vernacular history making,” personal archives are the objects—photos, drawings, notes, […]
With Sonya Di Sclafani In Montreal’s Hungarian community, food is not only a reflection of stability, tradition, and assimilation, but also carries meanings of family, nostalgia, and joy. Palacsintá, a sweet or savory Hungarian crêpe, is a well-loved and easy dish that can be filled with jam, ground walnut purée, farmer's cheese, cabbage, and […]
With Alistair Thomson How do we make sense of the memories that we record as oral historians? How do we begin to transform stories into histories? In this workshop we’ll consider a range of ways of approaching the interpretation of memories. We’ll note the changing ways that researchers have used memory as a historical […]
With Martha Norkunas This advanced oral history workshop focuses on miscommunications and complexities in listening. Participants will read a chapter from my forthcoming book, Learning to Listen, called “Complexities in Listening” and come to the workshop prepared to discuss the issues it raises. Based on years of listening journals written by graduate students in […]
The Kitchen Table Collective: Public Day of Workshops and Talks The Kitchen Table Collective (KTC) is an online network, founded by Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, whose members include leading scholars, artists, activists, and independent practitioners from around the world. Since 2023, the group has met virtually eight times a year to discuss members’ work, developments […]