COHDS

Exploring Diaspora Communities: Oral History, Storytelling, and Digital Mapping
2025-12-01 11:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
In June 2025, the University of Debrecen (Hungary) and Concordia University’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize our collaboration on a large-scale research oral history project that explores the memories and lived experiences of Hungarian Canadians in Montreal and beyond.

We are delighted to host a research showcase and storytelling panel to share early findings of the project, including an interactive map that brings to life the one-hundred-year-old history of Hungarians in Montreal. Featured speakers will include Dr. Balázs Venkovits (University of Debrecen) and Sonya Di Sclafani (Concordia University). We are honoured to welcome a panel of Hungarian-Canadian elders, who have graciously agreed to speak to their life histories and reflect on their memories of making Montreal home.

The event is organized in collaboration with the Hungarian Consulate in Montreal. It will take place at Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145) on Monday, December 1st (11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.), followed by a reception (12:30 p.m. – 14:00 p.m.). The Hungarian ambassador, His Excellency, Mr. Miklós Lengyel, will be in attendance.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register.
This is a hybrid event. To attend in person, please contact: invitation.mtr@mfa.gov.hu (As space is limited, in-person attendance is by invitation only.)
To attend online, please register here.
For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
The event takes place at Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation, J.W. McConnell Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. (LB-145).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Stories Matter 2.0: Working with COHDS’ (very own) Innovative Oral History Software
2025-12-05 13:00 - 15:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
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 iteration of the software known as Stories Matter 2.0. provides previous and new users the ability to recover old databases and create new workspaces for various oral history projects. Participants will be supported via guided walkthroughs and live demos on how to build their projects using a software that emphasizes orality and individual interviewees as central to the narration of stories.

Kelann Currie-Williams is a writer and PhD Candidate at Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, working at the intersections of Visual Culture Studies, History, Black Studies, and Cultural Studies. Their research focuses on the image-making and photographic preservation histories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Canada from the late 19th to late 20th centuries. Kelann was a 2023-2024 scholar-in-residence and 2024-2025 Student Representative at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

REGISTRATION
Register now.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory.
This technical workshop has a maximum number of sixteen participants. To have your name added to our waiting list once this maximum number is reached, please contact: cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person at the COHDS Media Lab (LB-1042).
You will find us on the tenth floor of Concordia’s Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec.

COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

LISTENING/RECORDING/REGISTERING
2026-01-14 17:30 - 19:00 | ALLab, J.W. McConnell (LB) Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. LB-1042-03 (10th floor)
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, Planning, and Environment and co-editor of Fire That Time: Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation, will guide participants through the recording, attending to the voices and perspectives of its speakers while situating the material within a broader political moment and localized space. We will also reflect on the act of acute listening to institutional archives, and the implications for transcribing the past into the present.
Hosted in the immersive Acts of Listening Lab, the session will consider how we listen to and work with archive, sound, and modes of register. Please sign up in advance at the email address above.
This event is presented in conjunction with SIGHTINGS 45: POWER. FORWARD. REVERSE. REWIND., a project by Joyce Joumaa on view on the ground floor of the Hall Building until February 1st, 2026.

Nalini Mohabir is an associate professor in the department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at Concordia University. She teaches in the fields of feminist and postcolonial migration geographies, and her research is primarily in the field of Caribbean studies, with a focus on indentureship. She has published articles in various publications including Small Axe, Habitat International, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, and Interventions. She has been working with long-time collaborator Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), on a series of publications about the Sir George Williams “Affair” including the edited collection, The Fire That Time: Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation (Montreal: Black Rose, 2021), a special issue of Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (March 2022) on the legacies of the 1969 Sir George Williams student protests, and an upcoming anthology (with Ronald Cummings and Christiana Abraham) on the visualities of the protest.

REGISTRATION
To register, please contact: juliaeilers.smith@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (ALLab), COHDS COHDS/ALLab is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

COHDS Choir: Sounds of Home, Sounds of Elsewheres
2026-01-15 18:00 - 2026-04-23 20:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
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 everyone can express themselves through sound and movement, using an inclusive approach to developing natural voices. Songs will be learned mainly by ear, so no singing or music-reading experience is required. Rehearsals will emphasize breathwork, harmony, and unison singing, encouraging diverse forms of expression and joy. The group will work toward a performance for COHDS’ 20th anniversary in October 2026, with participation encouraged but not mandatory.
Sara Lucas is a composer-performer and vocalist with twenty years of ensemble experience. She has toured internationally with Callers and LADAMA, produced multiple albums, and taught community-based music programs worldwide. More at: https://www.saralucas.net/
We will be meeting from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on the following dates:
January
Thursday, January 15 Thursday, January 29

February
Thursday, February 12 Thursday, February 26

March
Thursday, March 12 Thursday, March 26

April
Thursday, April 9 Thursday, April 23
If you’re interested in participating, please reach out to Sara Lucas at: sara.lucas@mail.concordia.ca

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom) and LB-1042 (Acts of Listening Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Deep Listening to Life Stories
2026-01-22 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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 link to those registered ten days before the workshop. It is essential that everyone attending listen to the interview and take some notes for reference.
Steven High is Professor of History and has published extensively in oral history. He co-founded Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) and led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories project from 2005 until 2012, where he worked in close partnership with survivor groups, which recorded the life stories of 500 survivors of mass violence, as well as the Living Archives of Rwandan Exiles and Survivors.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Please note: All those registered will need to be provided with the following link upon registration for this workshop and no later than Monday, January 12:
Interview with Valerie Fernandez
REFUGEE YOUTH WORKING GROUP
https://vimeo.com/showcase/11167762
Password: [REDACTED]

Screening of Hommes-relais, Becoming Ruby and Red Girl Rising
2026-01-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Vladimir Chindea and HotDocs

We are pleased to present, in collaboration with HotDocs, three Citizen Minutes documentaries: Hommes-relais, Becoming Ruby, and Red Girl Rising. Each of these films runs approximately ten minutes and speaks directly to COHDS’s core values of inclusion, resilience, solidarity, and hope. Together, they are sure to captivate viewers and evoke powerful emotional engagement.
Hommes-relais explores experiences of grief and adaptation within the Quebec immigration process, following a group of men who meet regularly to share their stories and develop tools to navigate life in a new home.
Becoming Ruby follows Ruby Chopstix, Canada’s first drag artist-in-residence, as they confront the challenges of underrepresentation and create a showcase that opens space for other queer BIPOC performers.
Finally, Red Girl Rising highlights the work of Mohawk matriarch, retired teacher, activist, and humanitarian Joyce Jonathan Crone, whose compassionate efforts in her Huntsville, Ontario community help bridge divides and strengthen Indigenous education.
Following the screening, we are honoured to host a roundtable discussion with Vladimir Chindea, director of Hommes-relais.

Vladimir Chindea is a Romanian-Canadian filmmaker currently completing the MFA in Cinematic Arts at Concordia University. His work explores themes of migration, memory, and existential inquiry. He directed/produced the short film Remember (2022) and regularly collaborates on both narrative and non-fiction projects as an assistant director. Vladimir holds a BA (Honours) in Philosophy and International Relations from the University of British Columbia. Trained as an ‘Homme-relais’ himself, it was the light of the CRIC community and the felt inspiration from Juan Manuel that guided him to direct this documentary debut.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (Acts of Listening Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Cooking with COHDS: Molisan Winter Remedies
2026-01-30 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
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 history interviews with community members for the cookbook Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage.
Cavatelli are the perfect pasta for hearty sauces to get you through the winter. Their shape allows them to hold a lot of sauce in their ridges and grooves. Taccozze are the typical pasta used to make scattone, a very particular dish that is said to cure all ailments. Participants will make enough for 2 portions of cavatelli and taccozze each. As we shape the pasta, participants will listen to the stories of these dishes from the original oral history interviews (in Italian). Additional historical information, final recipes, and translation will be provided.
Finally, as winter is the perfect time for storytelling over a steaming hot bowl of something delicious, participants will be invited to share stories of their own winter remedies of all kinds!

Cassandra Marsillo is public historian, artist, and educator, based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), telling and listening to stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore, particularly in relation to the Italian-Canadian experience and traditions from her family’s region, Molise.
Currently a doctoral student at Concordia University, Cassandra graduated twice from Concordia University with a BFA in Studio Arts and an Italian minor, and a BA in Honours Public History. In 2019, she completed her Master in Public History at Carleton University, Her research project, The Yellow Line: Italo-Canadian Oral Histories from Montreal’s Backyards and Schoolyards, was an archival photo, installation, and oral history pop-up exhibit, presented at the Casa d’Italia in March 2019.
Her latest project is an oral history cookbook on the stories and recipes of Montreal’s molisani, Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage, which she completed in collaboration with the Federazione delle associazioni molisane del Quebec, photographer and artist Vee Di Gregorio, chef Joseph D’Alleva, and pastry chef Erica Marsillo.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
As part of our exploration of Molisan foodways and oral histories, we will be preparing and eating a small meal together. Given space constraints, we need to limit the number of participants to sixteen. We will purchase food items based on the number of registered attendees. Should you be unable to attend, may we ask that you let us know at least one week in advance? We’d then be able to calibrate our food purchases accordingly and/or offer your spot to a participant on the waiting list.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at “The SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation,” LB-145, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Interpreting the Underlying Dynamic in Oral History
2026-02-05 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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 High is an award-winning historian whose research on the structural violence of deindustrialization has put Canada at the centre of important global conversations about what a “just transition” might look like after past failures. His use of oral history ensures that his interpretation is grounded in the lives of working people. He is currently leading a large transnational project investigating the politics of deindustrialization (see the website: deindustrialization.org). He has published many books and articles on this topic, including Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class (2022) and Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt (2003).
His second area of expertise involves the methodology, theory and ethics of oral history, particularly as it relates to mass violence. Steven High co-founded Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) and led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories project from 2005 until 2012, where he worked in close partnership with survivor groups.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Working with Communities: A Conversation on Navigating Relationships
2026-02-06 13:00 - 15:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
Photo description: Marjorie Villefranche in a collective oral history interview at La Maison d’Haïti

With Philippe Blouin, Michael Ferguson, Cassandra Marsillo, Tesfa Peterson, Léa Denieul Pinsky, and Désirée Rochat

This conversation explores a central topic: How do oral historians navigate the web of relationships that tie them to the community they are working with?
Over many years, the six panelists have worked closely with the Mohawk Mothers and Duplessis Orphans (Philippe Blouin & Léa Denieul Pinsky); a Lebanese community in Leamington, Ontario that has maintained deep connection to its homeland (Michael Ferguson); Molisan Italian-Canadians in Montreal, who are telling stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore (Cassandra Marsillo); the Institute for People’s Enlightenment in the Grenadian village of LaDigue that cultivates inclusive and intergenerational spaces for learning (Tesfa Peterson); and Black communities in Quebec whose knowledge activism has generated practices of community archiving and popular pedagogy.
Some of the panelists are members of the communities they study; others have been welcomed into the community. Yet, for all panelists, relationality lies at the core of their commitment to non-extractivist research. Their research affords an extended contemplation of the principle of “Shared Authority,” so foundational to our work at COHDS. In essence, they write, we are reflecting on what we are doing to try and “make oral history a more democratic cultural practice.” (Zembrzycki, 2009)
By attempting to tell complex and layered histories that centre knowledge generated by and with communities, researchers develop multi-faceted ways to work collaboratively. In this conversation, we will reflect on experiences of working in community toward a shared goal – to shed light on history. The discussion will centre around five questions:

𖥔 How do we reaffirm ongoing commitments as projects evolve?
𖥔 How do we manage different temporalities and rhythms due to the multiplicity of actors involved?
𖥔 What kind of challenges emerge from sharing authority?
𖥔 How are positionality and relationality negotiated?
𖥔 How do we protect vulnerable community members from other forms of extractivism?

These questions will act as a springboard into a broader conversation with the audience. This conversation will be moderated by Barbara Lorenzkowski.

Philippe Blouin (he/him) is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa. As part of his doctoral research in anthropology at McGill University, he studied the role of the Two Row Wampum as a diplomatic protocol based on respect for difference in the Mohawk Mothers’ and Duplessis Orphans’ searches for unmarked graves. He coordinated the publication of the oral history book, The Mohawk Warrior Society: A Handbook on Sovereignty and Survival (2023 PM Press) and published articles in journals such as The South Atlantic Quarterly and PoLAR: Political, and Legal Anthropology Review.
Michael Ferguson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Concordia University. His research focuses on the history of migration and slavery in the Ottoman Empire, the modern Middle East, and its diasporas. He has worked with two different communities on oral history projects: Afro-Turks (who trace their history through enslavement) in the Turkish port city of Izmir and a Lebanese community in Leamington, Ontario.
Cassandra Marsillo is an oral and public historian, artist, and writer, based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), telling and listening to stories about immigration, identity, collective memory, food, and folklore, particularly in relation to the Italian-Canadian experience and traditions from her family’s region, Molise. In 2019, she completed her Master’s project–The Yellow Line: Italo-Canadian Oral Histories from Montreal’s Backyards and Schoolyards–in Public History at Carleton University. The project culminated in an exhibit co-curated with the project’s six narrators. She is the author of Dalla valigia alla tavola: A journey through Molisan culinary heritage, a community project done in collaboration with the Federazione delle associazioni molisane del Quebec. Currently, she teaches in the Department of History at Dawson College and is pursuing her PhD at Concordia University on the development of Italian-Canadian cuisine and food identity in Montreal.
Tesfa Aki Peterson is a public humanities researcher and community-based scholar whose work centers Caribbean history, feminist postcolonial thought, and participatory storytelling. As a student in the PhD Humanities program at Concordia University, her current project traces the life and legacy of Helen Louise Langdon Norton Little, a woman born in LaDigue, Grenada in the late nineteenth century, whose life connected Grenada, Montreal, and the American Midwest. Helen Little was active in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Montreal and was the mother of eight children, including civil rights leader Malcolm X. Grounded in community knowledge and Caribbean feminist and postcolonial perspectives, her work asks how public humanities can preserve and honor lives that have been marginalized by colonial archives, while creating inclusive, intergenerational spaces for learning in both Grenada and the diaspora. Since 2020, she has collaborated with the Institute for People’s Enlightenment in the Grenadian village of LaDigue to organize lectures, storytelling sessions, and public conversations that center local voices and oral histories. Additionally, the project also extends to Montreal through an oral history and ritual storytelling podcast documenting Grenadian women’s community organizing. Across storybooks, podcasts, workshops, and public events, Tesfa’s work models a decolonial public humanities rooted in care, collaboration, and community memory.
Léa Denieul Pinsky is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). Working collaboratively with artists, community leaders, and activists, she conducts research on place, memory, and indigenous-settler alliances. Her current postdoctoral projects, carried out with the Mohawk Mothers and the Duplessis orphans, aim to develop community-centred memory work and ethics of care as tools for repairing urban sites marked by state-perpetrated violence.
Désirée Rochat is a community educator, transdisciplinary scholar, and Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Concordia University. She works to document and transmit histories of Black communities’ activism in Quebec in the 20th century, with a focus on knowledge activism. Her collaborative approach bridges historical research, community archiving and popular pedagogy to preserve and promote Black community archives. She co-edited Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper, with historians Sean Mills et Eric Fillion. Her latest project, “Black lives in/and archives” fosters an archival ecosystem to cultivate archives of Black lives.
Barbara Lorenzkowski is an oral historian of childhood and youth whose work explores the ways in which global processes of migration, displacement, and violence have shaped small people’s lives in outsized ways. She recently published the co-edited anthology Small Stories of War: Children, Youth, and Conflict in Canada and Beyond (with Kristine Alexander and Andrew Burt, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023) and is currently completing a FQRSC-funded book project The Children’s War, a large-scale oral history project on children’s sensuous and emotional life-worlds in Atlantic Canada during the Second World War. Dr. Lorenzkowski is the Lead Co-Director of COHDS.

REGISTRATION
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
This is a hybrid event.
To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.

LOCATION
The round-table conversation will take place in our Sunroom (LB-1019) , Concordia University, Library Building, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W.
For any questions regarding this event please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Capturing Voices: Recording Audio for History
2026-02-13 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
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 workshop examines how microphone selection, placement, and recording environment shape the clarity, texture, and intelligibility of recorded sound.
Participants will practice recording in both indoor and outdoor settings, rotating between the roles of recorder and speaker while capturing short audio samples across varied acoustic conditions. Emphasis is placed on critical listening as a methodological skill. The workshop also introduces basic audio workflows, including offloading recordings, performing foundational edits using Audacity, and organizing audio files for long-term storage and archival preservation.
Framed around the documentation of oral histories, this session equips participants with practical and transferable skills for recording clear, durable, and ethically sound audio materials. No prior technical experience is required.

Frankie Ray (they/them) is a Montreal-based videographer and DJ, with professional experience across music festivals, music videos, and film productions, including Netflix, HBO, the NFB and Crave. Trained as a certified 2nd Assistant Camera in ICG669/IATSE, Frankie brings both technical expertise and creative insight to their work. Outside of their personal work, Frankie has always put a focus on accessible, hands-on training. At COHDS, Frankie combines their professional background with a commitment to supporting researchers, artists, and storytellers in capturing and preserving stories with care and technical confidence.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom) and LB-1042 (Media Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Where Is the Joy in Oral History? 13th Emerging Scholars Symposium on Oral History, Digital Storytelling & Creative Practice
2026-03-20 08:30 - 17:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
COHDS is delighted to invite you to the 13th Emerging Scholars Symposium, a one-day, in-person event bringing together emerging scholars, artists, and community practitioners working in oral history, digital storytelling, and creative research.
This year’s symposium asks: Where is the joy in oral history? exploring joy as an emotional, political, and creative force in storytelling and oral history. At a moment often shaped by narratives of loss and crisis, the symposium creates space to listen for joy: in voice, memory, performance, ritual, and everyday exchange, without denying complexity or struggle.
Over the course of a day-long of activities, this event will feature conversations, short presentations, research-creation projects, and creative works by emerging scholars and artists, followed by discussion and collective reflection. Presentations will be in English and French.
All are welcome: students, researchers, artists, community members, and anyone interested in oral history and creative practice.
The Emerging Scholars Symposium is the highlight of the year, so we are looking forward to welcoming you!

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For more information, contact: cohds.chorn.symposium@gmail.com

LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

The River That is Not: Teaching Oral History and Photography through Fieldwork
2026-03-24 13:30 - 15:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
With Lea Kabiljo
This event marks the opening of The river that is not, an exhibition presenting a research project developed in collaboration with students from the visual arts program at the Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabí, Ecuador, and presented at COHDS from March 9 to April 20.

Developed as a short-term teaching intervention, the project introduced students to an oral history and photography methodology through fieldwork conducted in residential areas surrounding the contaminated waters of the Río Burro and Río Manta in Manta, Ecuador. Students worked with residents who shared personal accounts related to environmental conditions, urban infrastructure, and long-term lived experience in the area.
The exhibition brings together selected photographic works and interview excerpts from the students’ fieldwork, alongside documentation reflecting their experience of engaging with oral history and photography as a research methodology in a community context. The opening talk will focus on the pedagogical dimensions of the project, with particular attention to the challenges and possibilities of leading field-based work with students.
Project collaborators: Alisson Aguayo, Solange Arteaga, Cristina Basurto, Fernanda Candela, Dayton Cantos, Eduarda Caviedes, Vivian Cedeño, Rody Chiang, Josue Chinga, Joshian Defaz, Hanna Ferrin, Erick Loor, Casimiro Loor, Luís López, John Mera, Kayla Moreira, Jose Pin, Jean-Paul Plua, Emily Quiroz, Yaritza Rodriguez, Jose Sanchez, Brithanny Santana, Sulady Seme, Camily Torres, Pedro Villamil, Kiara Villegas, Nikole Zambrano and Damian Sinchi (instructor)

Lea Kabiljo is an assistant professor of art education at Université Laval and a multidisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of arts, education, and oral history. Her research focuses on integrating photography and oral history as a research-creation methodology and examining the pedagogical potential of this approach.

The artist talk (13:30-14:00) will be followed by a Q & A (14:00-14:20), both of which will be held in the Sunroom. Afterwards, we will wander over to the Media Lab for the exhibit launch. Light refreshments will be served.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca

LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom) and LB-1042 (Media Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Symposium Channels of Testimony: Artistic Mediations of Listening
2026-03-27 14:00 - 16:00
How does art channel and reshape the way we listen to lived experience?
Join Amy Starecheski, Director of Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts, and Luis C. Sotelo, Director of Concordia University’s Acts of Listening Lab (ALLab), for a conversation with three artist–scholar teams funded by ALLab to explore bold new pathways for mediating testimony through creative practice. This symposium brings together innovative practitioners working at the intersection of oral history, performance, sound, and socially engaged art. Together, we’ll delve into the practical and theoretical challenges of transforming real-life stories into artistic forms

Speakers and Projects
T Braun and Franklin van Grieken
Sentir la Luz/Sense the Light
A research-creation project that investigates how digital mediation and virtual reality, sound, and light reshapes perception and listening in a group of people with visual impairment. This project is carried out in collaboration with Kim Sawchuk, Kara Paul, and Teatro Ciego.

Vanessa Terán and María Fernanda del Real
Sucúa Haven
Migrant Stories: Embodied Listening Lab
Inspired by Sucúa Haven, a collection of migration stories created with Ecuadorian in Connecticut (United States), a group of Latin diaspora participants in Montreal (Canada), as well as Ecuadorians and other Latin American immigrants in Quito (Ecuador), will reflect on their own migratory experiences and create performances of embodied testimonies that places Sucúa Haven stories in dialogue with their own.

Peng Hsu
Cucumbers, The Melancholy of a Turtle and a Girl’s Otaku’s Romance
A novel/play creative project that explores BBR. BBR, short for Broke Broke Recitation, is my translation of the Mandarin term 碎碎唸 (siu siu nian), a phrase commonly used in Taiwan and China to describe how women chatter incessantly about daily and seemingly banal trivialities. Theorized here as a technique of queer narration, BBR functions as a dramaturgical writing style through which the project examines housing justice, an endangered turtle, and the inarticulable experiences of constipation and yearning of romance.

Moderator
Luis C. Sotelo Castro
Director, Acts of Listening Lab (Concordia University)
Discussant
Amy Starecheski
Director, Oral History Master of Arts Program (Columbia University)

REGISTRATION

This is a hybrid event.
Register in person with this link

Register for zoom with this link

LOCATION
In-person at the 4TH SPACE, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Cooking With COHDS: Cantos y Coco – Preparing Alegría to the songs of Palenqueras
2026-03-30 14:00 - 16:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
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 a symbol of resistance, memory, and cultural continuity. The workshop will unfold to the sounds of traditional cantos de venta and bullerengue rhythms, echoing the melodic street calls through which palenqueras sell their sweets in Cartagena’s plazas. Guided through the key steps of grating coconut, cooking panela to the perfect caramel point, and shaping the mixture into compact rounds, participants will explore the vital role of Palenqueras in shaping the music, culinary traditions, and cultural memory of the Colombian Caribbean.
Over alegría and limonada de coco, participants will reflect on the storytelling relationship between cooking and music—how songs, sounds, and shared rhythms shape the ways we remember and retell food traditions.

Hannah Pinilla is an oral historian and holds a MA in public history with a specialization in digital humanities at Carleton University. Her SSHRC-funded master’s research project, “El Sabor del Hogar: The Transformation of Identity and Memory Through the Food Practices of Colombian Migrants in Quebec,” engaged nine Colombian migrants, living in Montreal and Longueuil in oral history interviews facilitated through cooking sessions, to explore how the narration, preparation, and consumption of ‘home foods’ is a form of embodied and interactive diasporic memory work. Her research question were guided by her own lived experiences as the granddaughter of a first-generation Colombian-Canadian: how does the dialectical relationship between identity and memory manifest through food practice and what impact does it have on the process of home-building?

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
As part of our exploration of Columbian foodways and oral histories, we will be preparing and eating a small meal together. Given space constraints, we need to limit the number of participants to fifteen. We will purchase food items based on the number of registered attendees. Should you be unable to attend, may we ask that you let us know at least one week in advance? We’d then be able to calibrate our food purchases accordingly and/or offer your spot to a participant on the waiting list.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at “The SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation,” LB-145, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Faire parler les sons de la ville. Réflexions sur les ambiances et les paysages sonores en tant que récits géographiques
2026-04-01 13:00 - 15:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Violaine Jolivet

What story (city) sounds tell us? Reflections on ambiances and soundscapes as geographical narratives
This research presentation aims to show how the sounds produced and perceived by individuals and groups can be understood as possible narratives about the places we inhabit and study. Based on interviews conducted as part of my research in urban geography, I consider ambiences or soundscapes as narratives about territories, allowing for a descriptive and analytical approach to the neighborhoods and cities I study. Whether produced, designed, or experienced, sounds depend on our architectural, social, aesthetic, political, and technical environments, but above all on our sensory experience of space.

Violaine Jolivet has been a professor of geography at the University of Montreal since 2012, after obtaining a PhD from Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne 1 and completing postdoctoral studies in New York (CUNY). Her expertise lies at the intersection of urban and migration studies, using comparative methods. Her research focuses on transnational mobility, gentrification, and resistance to displacement in Havana and Montreal.
Documentaries – video and audio, sound maps, narrative cartography, and hybrid methodologies strongly influence her research.Looking on several of my past and ongoing research projects, she would like to discuss how sounds have influenced her practice and methods, particularly field recording and sound maps, and present some more general reflections on sounds as narratives.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Montreal Book Launch of Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare
2026-04-10 13:00 - 15:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Julie Norman

In this urgent and compelling book, Julie M. Norman and Maia Carter Hallward tell the story of Gaza from its early foundations, across decades of occupation, to the devastation of the ongoing war. Rather than focusing on elites or abstract politics, at the book’s heart are ordinary Gazans – students, aid workers, journalists, and teachers – whose first-hand testimonies vividly illuminate the realities behind the headlines.
Refusing to sensationalize or oversimplify, the book reckons with the legal, moral, and humanitarian debates surrounding Gaza, from war crimes investigations to the contested meaning of resistance and the politicization of aid. Combining a nuanced narrative with hard-hitting reflections from everyday Gazans, the book serves as a timely and necessary disruption of media cliches and political binaries, and from the perspectives of its own people.

Julie Norman is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at University College London and Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at the Royal United Services Institute. Previously she taught in the Political Science Department at
Concordia University and served as Co-Director of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

COHDS Postdoctoral Oral History Showcase: A Roundtable
2026-04-15 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Martín Giraldo-Hoyos, Camille Robert, Florence Darveau Routhier

This year, we are proud to highlight three outstanding postdoctoral researchers at COHDS and to showcase their work. Together, their projects reflect the breadth and vitality of oral history–informed scholarship: from collaborative research with Black farming communities in Colombia using oral history and digital storytelling, to historical studies of women, labour, and feminist movements in Quebec, and place-based, creative ethnographic research on poverty and gentrification in Sherbrooke.

Martín Giraldo-Hoyos is an FRQ-SC postdoctoral fellow in Concordia’s Department of Geography, Planning and Environment. His current project examines the intersections of oral history, soundscape ecology, story mapping, and digital storytelling to support collaborative research with Black farming communities in Colombia’s Cauca River Valley. This work builds on his PhD dissertation at McGill University, which analyzed the environmental history of emancipation in the region between mid-19th and early-20th centuries through geospatial methods, political ecology, and social history. Martín also produces documentary podcasts in collaboration with Afro-Colombian organizations and participates in grassroots archival cataloguing initiatives.

Camille Robert is a historian and postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University. Her research focuses on the history of women, work, unionism, and feminist movements in Quebec. In 2017, she published Toutes les femmes sont d’abord ménagères. Histoire d’un combat féministe pour la reconnaissance du travail ménager with Éditions Somme toute. She also co-edited, with Louise Toupin, the collective work Travail invisible. Portraits d’une lutte féministe inachevée, published in the fall of 2018 by Éditions du remue-ménage. Committed to contributing to the dissemination of history, she is a member of the editorial board of Histoire Engagée and collaborates with several media outlets and organizations.

Florence Darveau Routhier conducts her research in the Alexandre district of downtown Sherbrooke, a working-class neighborhood where revitalization initiatives are part of the ongoing gentrification process. Her place-based research aims to deconstruct the managerial perspective that approaches poverty and related issues “from the top down.” She therefore addresses the issues of poverty and the historical struggles associated with it as closely as possible, examining how they are experienced, using creative ethnographic methods and situated perspective epistemologies. She is a member of the Collectif d’histoire, d’éducation et d’archivage populaire de Sherbrooke (CHEAP), with which she conducts her research.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory.

LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Ethics in Research: How to Apply for Ethics Certification
2026-04-17 14:00 - 16:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
With Barbara Lorenzkowski, Tesfa Peterson, Franklin Bonivento Van Grieken and Derek Xavier Garcia
To obtain the informed consent of our research participants is both an ethical and institutional obligation for oral historians working at Canadian universities. This workshop seeks to demystify the process of applying for ethics certification. Three emerging scholars will reflect on their experiences in navigating this process and discuss how they have translated the ethos of “sharing authority” into the formal language of their ethics applications. Meanwhile, Lead Co-Director Barbara Lorenzkowski will provide hands-on guidance on how to prepare an ethics application for your own thesis research at Concordia. Registered participants will be provided with examples of successful ethics applications, including consent forms.
Barbara Lorenzkowski is an oral historian of childhood and youth whose work explores the ways in which global processes of migration, displacement, and violence have shaped small people’s lives in outsized ways. She recently published the co-edited anthology Small Stories of War: Children, Youth, and Conflict in Canada and Beyond (with Kristine Alexander and Andrew Burt, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2023) and is currently completing a FQRSC-funded book project The Children’s War, a large-scale oral history project on children’s sensuous and emotional life-worlds in Atlantic Canada during the Second World War. Dr. Lorenzkowski is the Lead Co-Director of COHDS.
Tesfa Aki Peterson is a public humanities researcher and community-based scholar whose work centers Caribbean history, feminist postcolonial thought, and participatory storytelling. As a student in the PhD Humanities program at Concordia University, her current project traces the life and legacy of Helen Louise Langdon Norton Little, a woman born in LaDigue, Grenada in the late nineteenth century, whose life connected Grenada, Montreal, and the American Midwest. Helen Little was active in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Montreal and was the mother of eight children, including civil rights leader Malcolm X. Grounded in community knowledge and Caribbean feminist and postcolonial perspectives, her work asks how public humanities can preserve and honor lives that have been marginalized by colonial archives, while creating inclusive, intergenerational spaces for learning in both Grenada and the diaspora. Since 2020, she has collaborated with the Institute for People’s Enlightenment in the Grenadian village of LaDigue to organize lectures, storytelling sessions, and public conversations that center local voices and oral histories. Additionally, the project also extends to Montreal through an oral history and ritual storytelling podcast documenting Grenadian women’s community organizing. Across storybooks, podcasts, workshops, and public events, Tesfa’s work models a decolonial public humanities rooted in care, collaboration, and community memory.
Franklin Bonivento Van Grieken studied Anthropology (honor degree, 2019) and has a master’s degree in History (Cum Laude thesis, 2022) at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia. As a son, and grandson, of indigenous Wayuu women, and as a son of a Jewish man, his academic life has been focused on comprehending his own roots and finding ways to communicate them, as well as on Caribbean history, Wayuu people cosmovision, oralities, migrations, frontiers, and musicology. In that respect, he has explored different formats such as essays, creative narratives, and since 2015 he has been engaged in radio broadcasting and podcasting. This experience of creation has served as a form to make and show research: exploring the sound-essays, radio-documentaries, podcasting, among others. He has worked, too, in museography, writing books, fieldwork, and has always considered interdisciplinary work more of a conviction than an option, jumping between the boundaries of disciplines to have big conversations and to find methods and techniques to apprehend our reality, therefore finding new questions, new responses, and new audiences.
Derek Xavier Garcia is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Concordia University, Montréal, and a 2025–2026 Scholar-in-Residence at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He was previously a 2023–2024 Mellon Foundation Resident Scholar in Latino Studies at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His research falls at the intersections of the culture, memory, and history of Mexican American activist movements, particularly at the first Mexican American college in the United States, Colegio Jacinto Treviño (1969-1976). He has published in American Quarterly and Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Introduction à l’histoire orale
2026-04-20 15:00 - 17:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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 nouvelles.eaux affilié.e.s, car il a pour but de présenter la méthodologie et l’éthique suivies par notre Centre.
Cet atelier offre des conseils sur la réalisation d’un projet d’histoire orale du début à la fin, y compris la planification du projet, les méthodes d’entretien, la gestion des données et le traitement des dossiers, ainsi que la diffusion de ceux-ci. L’atelier comprend également des moments interactif qui permettront aux participant.e.s de discuter des concepts clés et de mettre en pratique les stratégies d’entretien.

Lea Kabiljo, professeur à l’École d’art, Université Laval, est une chercheuse multidisciplinaire, dont l’expertise s’étend aux domaines des arts, de la pédagogie et de l’histoire orale. Elle porte un intérêt particulier à l’intégration de la photographie et de l’histoire orale dans sa démarche de recherche-création.
Titulaire d’un doctorat en éducation artistique de l’Université Concordia, sa recherche met en évidence une approche multidisciplinaire en examinant le potentiel pédagogique de l’histoire orale et de la photographie dans le domaine de l’enseignement artistique.
Ayant enseigné dans des milieux scolaires, communautaires et universitaires, Lea s’intéresse activement à la formation des enseignants, avec un accent particulier sur le développement des compétences socio-émotionnelles. Également reconnue pour son expertise en histoire orale, elle a dirigé de nombreux projets de recherche au Québec, ainsi que des initiatives d’envergure internationale.
Quadrilingue, ayant voyagé dans plus de trente pays et vécu sur quatre continents, Lea a développé une vision du monde ancrée dans les valeurs d’équité, de diversité et d’inclusion. Elle cherche constamment à appliquer ces principes dans toutes ses démarches, tant professionnelles que personnelles.

INSCRIPTION
Inscrivez-vous ici.
Veuillez noter que tous nos événements sont gratuits et ouverts à toutes et à tous. Cependant, vous devez réserver votre place. Pour participer à l’événement en présentiel évrivez à: cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LIEU
Le CHORN/ALLAB sont situés sur le territoire non-cédé de Kanien’kehá:ka à Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal.
En personne à LB-1019 (salle Sunroom), Centre d’histoire orale et de narration numérique (COHDS), Université Concordia, 1400 boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, pavillon J.-W. McConnell (pavillon de la Bibliothèque).

Personal Archives in the Interview Space
2026-04-30 14:00 - 16:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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, documents, digital creations—that individuals collect to preserve historical perspectives which may not be considered by institutional archives. This workshop envisions these moments of sharing as opportunities to learn with the narrator; despite the surprise they may bring.
How do you include these objects in the interview? How do you record their presence? How might a researcher design ethics around this possibility? Garcia and Currie-Williams will discuss their experiences interviewing individuals who brought more to the interview than what was expected, and how they effectively included these materials in their dialogue.

Kelann Currie-Williams is a writer and PhD Candidate at Concordia University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, working at the intersections of Visual Culture Studies, History, Black Studies, and Cultural Studies. Their research focuses on the image-making and photographic preservation histories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Canada from the late 19th to late 20th centuries. Kelann was a 2023-2024 scholar-in-residence and 2024-2025 Student Representative of the COHDS Administrative Board.
Derek Xavier Garcia is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Concordia University. His research falls at the intersections of culture, memory, and history of Mexican American and Chicanx activist movements. His dissertation explores educational activism at Colegio Jacinto Treviño (1970-1976), the first Mexican American college in the United States. Derek was a 2022-2023 Student Representative on the COHDS Administrative Board and is currently a 2025-2026 Scholar-in-Residence at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Cooking With COHDS: Palacsintá – Sharing Stories and Pancakes from the Hungarian Montreal Community
2026-05-01 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia’s SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation (LB-145), 1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montréal
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 meats. In this workshop we will learn to make palacsintá and create both a sweet and a savory filling. To accompany us, a member of the Hungarian diaspora in Montreal will be invited to share their recollections of palacsintá and other food practices of the community.
This workshop on foodways in the Hungarian diaspora forms part of my larger research project on the history of Hungarian-Canadian refugees and their descendants who made Montreal home in the mid-twentieth century. In my oral history fieldwork, I turn to women’s memories of foodways as a way of tracing the intergenerational, interethnic, and gendered dynamics of forced migration and homemaking by Hungarian Canadian women in the second half of the twentieth century. I hope that you can join us!

Sonya Di Sclafani is a MA student (History) at Concordia University, where she previously completed both a BFA in Photography and Art History and a BA Honours in History, with a minor in English Literature. She is interested in exploring experiences of migration, cross-cultural contact, East European history, and Jewish history. Her MA thesis examines the history of Montreal’s Hungarian diaspora, with a particular eye to gendered foodways and food as a means of cultural continuity and disruption. Drawing on newspaper and archival research, she has begun to map the culinary landscape of Hungarian restaurants and food speciality stores in Montreal that provided spaces for inter-ethnic encounters, fondly remembered in some of the oral history interviews she conducted to date.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
As part of our exploration of Hungarian foodways and oral histories, we will be preparing and eating a small meal together. Given space constraints, we need to limit the number of participants to fifteen. We will purchase food items based on the number of registered attendees. Should you be unable to attend, may we ask that you let us know at least one week in advance? We’d then be able to calibrate our food purchases accordingly and/or offer your spot to a participant on the waiting list.
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at “The SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation,” LB-145, Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Interpreting Oral History: A Masterclass with Alistair Thomson
2026-06-10 10:00 - 13:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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 source. We’ll consider the factors that shape memory stories. We’ll try out narrative analysis with interview extracts (from Al’s interviews with migrants and war veterans) using the rich clues of sound, gesture, word and narrative form. We’ll think about how we might work with a set of interviews to find historical patterns and illuminate historical themes. And we’ll consider the ethical issues posed when we interpret people’s lives and stories. You’ll finish up brimming with ideas and enthusiasm for working with your own interviews (or other people’s interviews), armed with lists of further reading if you wish to deepen your understanding
Alistair Thomson has been teaching oral history since he ran an adult education interviewing workshop in regional Australia in 1985, and in 2018 received an Australian Award for University Teaching Excellence. Al is Emeritus Professor of History at Monash University and a former President of Oral History Australia and the International Oral History Association. His oral history books include: Anzac Memories (1994 and 2013), The Oral History Reader (1998, 2006 and 2015 with Rob Perks, and 2026, forthcoming with Alex Freund), Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants (2005, with Jim Hammerton), Moving Stories: an intimate history of four women across two countries (2011) Oral History and Photography (2011, with Alexander Freund) Australian Lives: An Aural History (2017, with Anisa Puri), Fathering: An Australian History (2025, with John Murphy, Kate Murphy and Johnny Bell), and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Oral History (2026, with Alexander Freund and Erin Jessee). Website: https://althomsonoralhistory.com.au/

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Complexities in Listening: A Masterclass with Martha Norkunas
2026-06-11 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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 my oral history seminars, the chapter reflects on why two people in a narrating-listening relationship can leave the interview with radically different experiences. Do we ever know how our narrator’s felt about the interview? Participants will be invited to share complex issues that arose in their own, or their students’ interviews. We will look at interpreting body language, voice inflection and pacing, the delicate, often nonverbal negotiations that take place about what is appropriate to talk about in an interview and what is too personal, and, related to that, what is culturally appropriate and who decides.

It is essential that all participants read Chapter Ten, Complexities in Listening, and take notes for reference prior to the workshop. The chapter link will be sent upon registration before the workshop.

Martha Norkunsa is an oral and public historian in Austin, Texas. She holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana University’s Folklore Institute. She is the author of The Politics of Public Memory (SUNY Press, 1993), Monuments and Memory (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002) and the forthcoming Learning to Listen: Exercises to Become a More Empathic Interviewer (Palgrave, 2026) as well as articles in national and international journals. Norkunas’s work examines how historical and cultural memory is represented in narrative and on the landscape, and how those representations intersect with race, gender, class and power. She taught graduate seminars in oral history at the University of Texas at Austin and in the Public History Program at Middle Tennessee State University. She directed a twenty-year project, the African American Oral History Project (now at the Library of Congress), as well as a variety of oral history projects with refugees, refugee workers, women in Democratic politics, National Park Service Superintendents interpreting slavery, and peace activists. Her own oral history project focused on women textile workers, the meaning of work for furniture workers, women and cancer, women imagining safe cities, immigrants and refugees, and political activists in resistance movements.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

The Kitchen Table Collective : Open Plenary and Reception
2026-06-11 18:00 - 21:00 | MEM, 1210 Boulevard Saint-Laurent
Opening Plenary and Reception: Listening in the Age of Polycrisis
Hosted at the MEM — Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises, 1210 Saint-Laurent Boulevard (Nearest metro station: St. Laurent Metro Station)
Sponsored by the Centre de recherche interdisciplinairesur la diversité et la démocratie (CRIDAQ)
A conversation about listening in an age of polycrisis, as several crises (economic, ecological, geopolitical, etc.) occur, amplify, and interact with each other on a global scale. Rooted in oral history methodologies that focus on solidarity, decolonization, and de-centring the human, Crystal Mun-hye Baik, Elder John Sawyer, Katrina Srigley, and Leyla Neyzi reflect on listening as a political act for community-building and a counterpoint to dynamics of violence, polarization, and alienation.

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 in the field of oral history, and how we are collectively navigating the politics of our institutions, communities, and everyday lives. We are pleased to now open up this generative space to COHDS community members, by inviting you to attend the collective’s first in-person meeting: “Listening in the Age of Polycrisis.” This symposium asks how oral historians ought to adapt to the shifting realities and crises of our current moment to not just strengthen the field, but think through what our work may offer our troubled world.
Please join us for the symposium’s opening plenary at the Centre des mémoires montréalaises (MEM) on Thursday, June 11 and a full day of talks and workshops at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling on Friday, June 12, all of which will focus on what it means to listen right now.

We ask that you register at the links below if you are interested in attending; you can also find these links in the complete program. Feel free to circulate these events within your networks too!

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
Please note that the symposium’s opening plenary and reception are hosted at the MEM — Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises, 1210 Saint-Laurent Boulevard (Nearest metro station: St. Laurent Metro Station)

The Kitchen Table Collective : Public Day of Workshops and Talks
2026-06-12 09:00 - 17:30 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
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 in the field of oral history, and how we are collectively navigating the politics of our institutions, communities, and everyday lives. We are pleased to now open up this generative space to COHDS community members, by inviting you to attend the collective’s first in-person meeting: “Listening in the Age of Polycrisis.” This symposium asks how oral historians ought to adapt to the shifting realities and crises of our current moment to not just strengthen the field, but think through what our work may offer our troubled world.
Please join us for a full day of talks and workshops at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling on Friday, June 12, all of which will focus on what it means to listen right now.
Public Day of Workshops and Talks, including the Oral History Book Launch (Limited spaces), 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
You can consult the full program here.

Workshop: Push Play, A Participatory Workshop on Oral History and Play (Limited spaces)
16h00 – 17h30
Push Play is an experiential workshop that invites participants to rethink assumptions about speech, narrative, and memory embedded in oral history practice. Through play-based, theatrical, and sensory exercises, the workshop asks: What is the most open invitation we can offer someone to share their experience of being in the world? And what conditions make that kind of sharing possible? Participants will engage in embodied memory work, sensory exploration, improvisation, and collective scene-making to explore how the body listens, remembers, and communicates—including beyond or before spoken language. Rather than privileging stories or linear narration, Push Play emphasizes presence, process, and relational attention. Designed for oral historians, educators, and artists, this workshop is a shared space for experimenting with and thinking together about how to create more inclusive and expansive approaches to memory work. Participants will collectively reflect on how these practices might inform their interviews, classrooms, archives, and community-based projects.
Co-sponsored by the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and Concordia University’s Department of History

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link for Public Day of Workshops and Talks, including the Oral History Book Launch (Limited spaces) and with this link for Workshop: Push Play, A Participatory Workshop on Oral History and Play (Limited spaces)
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person at LB-1019 (Sunroom), LB-1042 (Media Lab) in the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), and LB-1014 (Department of History Seminar Room), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Introduction to Oral History
2026-09-11 10:00 - 12:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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, as it is intended to present the methodology and ethics followed by our Centre.
Steven High is lead co-director of COHDS and has published extensively on oral history methodology, theory and ethics. His books include Oral History at the Crossroads, Beyond Testimony and Trauma: Oral History in the Aftermath of Mass Violence, and Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence and Class. He led the prize-winning Montreal Life Stories project.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Annual General Assembly – Assemblée générale annuelle
2026-09-18 11:00 - 14:30 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
Keynote speaker: Ioana Radu
“ Nurturing worlds of care and belonging: Indigenous Kinscapes and Oral History ”

Ioana Radu is a professor at the School of Indigenous Studies at Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) and COHDS core member. For more than two decades, Ioana has worked in partnership with Indigenous communities and organizations in Quebec on priority issues in Indigenous health and well-being, knowledge mobilization, and decoloniality.

SCHEDULE:
11 am – 12 pm
Keynote Speaker – Conférencière invitée
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Annual General Assembly – Assemblée générale annuelle

Reporting – Rapport
Electing – Élections
Q&A – Période de questions

See last year’s AGA meeting minutes (2025)

REGISTRATION

Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but you need to register!
To attend, please register here.
For any questions regarding this event please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LB 1019 (Sunroom), COHDS

COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Immersive Oral History Capture: Setup, Recording, and Archiving
2026-09-24 13:00 - 16:00 | Concordia University, LB-1042 (COHDS), 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd O, Montreal
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 skills in file transfer, organization, and archival best practices, ensuring that valuable stories are safely preserved for long-term use. Participants will practice setting up tripods, microphones, and recorders, then conduct short mock interviews to apply these skills in real time. Cameras available to participants will be Sony FX6, Canon XA40, Blackmagic and JVC 3CCD. The session will conclude with a focus on safe file management: offloading to a computer, creating backups, and preparing files for the archive. No prior technical experience is required; this workshop is designed for anyone interested in documenting, preserving, and safeguarding oral history materials.
What we’ll do:
§ Why technical setup matters for oral history
§ Demonstrate a short 10-minute oral history video/audio project from our archives
§ Equipment set up: build camera & mics
§ File offload and management for editing
§ Best Practices in Archiving Audio- and Videofiles
§ Tear down gear and put it back safely

Perks:
§ Everyone gets to touch gear
§ Make a check list for oral history kit for everyone to take home

Frankie Ray is a Montreal-based videographer and DJ, with professional experience across music festivals, music videos, and film productions, including Netflix, HBO, the NFB and Crave. Trained as a certified 2nd Assistant Camera in ICG669/IATSE, Frankiebrings both technical expertise and creative insight to their work. Outside of their personal work, Frankiehas always put a focus on accessible, hands-on training. At COHDS, Frankie combines their professional background with a commitment to supporting researchers, artists, and storytellers in capturing and preserving stories with care and technical confidence.

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1042 (Media Lab), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Listening Circles: Telling Interview Stories (Monthly)
2026-09-25 11:00 - 13:00 | LB-1019 (Sunroom), COHDS, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Québec, Canada
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 community members to build relationships while they share the issues that keep them awake at night. Talking through what is said or unsaid, the stories that have a beginning but no end, the tangents that lead to possibilities or dead ends, and the interpersonal dynamics that make collaboration possible or problematic are all part of a debriefing process that holds great potential for pushing the field forward. This is work that should not be done alone. All interview stories welcome!

REGISTRATION
Register now with this link
Please note that all our events are free and open to all, but registration is mandatory. For any questions, please contact cohds.chorn@concordia.ca
LOCATION
In-person in LB-1019 (Sunroom), Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, J.W. McConnell Building (Library Building).
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.

Come Walk With Us: Walkathon Fundraiser for “Award of Distinction in Oral History”
2026-09-25 12:30 - 17:00 | EV Atrium, 1515 Sainte-Catherine St. W., Montréal, Quebec, H3G 1S6, Canada
This year, “Team COHDS” will be joining the Concordia Shuffle – an annual fundraiser for student scholarships and bursaries – to help raise funds for our annual “Award of Distinction in Oral History.”
We are warmly inviting all members of our community to come and walk with us from Concordia’s downtown campus to Loyola on Friday, September 26. The shuffle will start at 12:30 pm at the EV Atrium on Sir George Williams Campus. A member of our team will be holding up a sign “Team COHDS”.
Join our team: If you liked to “shuffle” with us, we invite you to join our team (click on “Join Team”). COHDS-affiliated faculty will be donating $ 10 for each COHDS affiliate who will join us at the shuffle.
Support from afar: For those members of our community who are not based in Montreal or have prior obligations on September 26, if you were interested in making a small donation to our campaign, you could do so at “Donate Now”. Rest assured that 100 per cent of your donation will go towards our annual student thesis prize.
We look forward to walking with you!
