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 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 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 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 […]

With Steven High   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, […]

Facilitated by Anna Sheftel, Stacey Zembrzycki and Cassandra Marsillo, who are Kitchen Table Collective Members Creating open, safe, generative, and generous spaces to tell interview stories is vital to thinking through the varied challenges that oral historians face in the field. These monthly listening circles, led by an intergenerational group of practitioners, will enable COHDS […]

Picture credits: Eve Garnier, on the picture: Anita Saj, Signe Waldorff, Carina Raffel, Fatima Cerqueira and Martin Bélanger.   With Eve Garnier   This participatory workshop invites participants into the "hows" of Eve's research-creation master NURT/FLOW, exploring family stories as a third-generation descendant through dance practices. Conceived as a laboratory, the space is filled with […]

Facilitated by Anna Sheftel, Stacey Zembrzycki and Kay Ponthieux Stern, who are Kitchen Table Collective Members Creating open, safe, generative, and generous spaces to tell interview stories is vital to thinking through the varied challenges that oral historians face in the field. These monthly listening circles, led by an intergenerational group of practitioners, will enable […]