| 8:00am – 9:00am |
Registration
Sign-In & Vaccination Verification
The Dallas Way: Faces of LGBTQ+ History Gallery in the H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery (Ground Floor, Building B) |
| 9:00am – 10:30am |
Opening
Welcome and Overview of the Conference
Plenary Speaker: Moises “Moe” V. Vela, Jr.
Speaker Bio: Moe Vela has been named one of the “Top 100 Hispanics in America” by Hispanic Business magazine and was twice named one of the “101 Most Influential Latinos” by Latino Leaders magazine, as well as, one of Washington’s Top 300 Insiders by the National Journal. He was also named to the Powermeter 100—the Washington area’s most influential individuals for Hispanic Communities by El Tiempo Latino, a Washington Post Company publication.
A proud fourth-generation Texan, Vela has served as a former US Federal District Judge and a former Cameron County Judge. Vela is the first Hispanic-American and LGBTQ-American to serve twice in the White House in a senior executive role.
Vela is the CEO of MoeVela, LLC , a strategic business advisory firm, and Founder of The Vela Group, LLC, a global business development consulting firm. Additionally, he is Of Counsel/Senior Advisor at the law firm of Stein Mitchell Beato and Missner and the Principal Advisor at TransparentBusiness. His most recent endeavor is the the co-creation, co-production, and co-star of the streaming-TV series Unicorn Hunters.
Vela is also the author of the best selling book, Little Secret, Big Dreams: Pink and Brown in the White House, an auto-biography detailing Vela’s upbringing in a Hispanic Catholic home in Texas, his coming out story, and his journey to the White House. |
| 10:45am – 11:45am |
Block 1
| Room |
Session and Presenters |
| TBA |
Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project
Arden Eversmeyer
“We had never held hands out in public, but before they put her in the ambulance, I kissed Bobbie on the forehead whispered that I loved her.” When interviewed for the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP), Jean, born 1927, talked about losing Bobbie. They’d been together for more than 35 years, living in rural Texas and had never show affection towards each other in public. Although many things have changed for lesbians now, it is essential that we remember and honor the lives of the women who came before us, living during a time when there were no books or magazines and no organizations, when being homosexual was classified as a disease for which you might be institutionalized, when simply dancing at a bar with another woman might land you in jail.
Some historians were trying to tell the story of these women, but it was always their interpretation of the story. The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project has worked for more than 20 years to document and preserve the life stories of lesbians 70 and older. The OLOHP presentation will not only tell you about the Project and how it works, it will include a few readings of excerpts taken from their collection of 700+ interviews. |
| TBA |
Austin History Center Memory Project
Lauren Gutterman, PhD, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Exploring experience training undergraduates to serve as oral history practitioners, including challenges and strengths of this ongoing effort to gather local LGBTQ oral history interviews. |
| TBA |
Trans Digital Archives
Cailin Flannery Roles
Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history. This presentation will provide an overview of the DTA’s history and ongoing work, outline our approach to accessibility and community accountability, and highlight materials from the Southern United States. |
| TBA |
On Naiad Press of Tallahassee, Florida: Exploring the Balance between Shared Authority and Social Justice in Queer Public History
Michael David Franklin, Assistant Director of Honors in the Major and Honors Faculty, Florida State University RaeAnn Quick, Student, Florida State University
This presentation will use our work on a public history project about Naiad Press – an internationally prominent lesbian publishing company located in Tallahassee, Florida, from 1980 to 2003 – to think about legacies of racial segregation in queer spaces, as well as the ethics of framing a majority-white lesbian community’s history through oral history research. |
| TBA |
Archival Exhibits
Jaimi Parker, Exhibits Coordinator Librarian, University of North Texas Special Collections
This presentation demonstrates the basics of archival exhibit creation from concept creation, text editing and layout, material mounting, to final layout and installation. It will show simple inexpensive techniques that will allow archivists to create a professional looking exhibit, that is up to archival standards, and which is easy for visitors to digest. |
| TBA |
Repeated Session TBD |
|
| 11:45am – 1:15pm |
Student Poster Session and Lunch |
| 1:30pm – 2:30pm |
Block 2
| Room |
Session and Presenters |
| TBA |
Touching Up Our Roots with #TUOR: Atlanta’s Queer Digital Story Tour
Eric E. Solomon, PhD, Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies and English Dave Hayward, Touching Up Our Roots Co-Founder and Coordinator
A self-guided audio tour of sites integral to the LGBTQIA+ story in Atlanta. Curated and narrated by Dave Hayward, founder of the LGBTQ Story Tour, and co-founder of Touching Up Our Roots: Georgia’s LGBTQ+ Story Project. Lesbian herstorian Maria Helena Dolan provides additional narration. Developed and produced by Dave Hayward and Dr. Eric Solomon. In 2016 Hayward founded the live LGBTQ Story Tour with Atlanta Pride and the LGBTQ Institute. |
| TBA |
Queer Persistence in the Archives
Amy L. Stone, PhD, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Trinity University
This presentation explores the necessity for persistence in archival research, particularly archival research outside of conventional archives. I focus on queer geographies of the South, relational persistence, and emotional investments during a research project on LGBTQ involvement in citywide festivals in the urban South and Southwest. |
| TBA |
Invisible Histories Project: How IHP is Working to Save LGBTQ History in the Deep South
Maigen Sullivan, Director of Research and Development, Invisible Histories Project Josh Burford, Director of Outreach and Lead Archivist, Invisible Histories Project
The Invisible Histories Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Birmingham, AL that locates, preserves, researches and makes community accessible the rich and diverse history of LGBTQ people in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. IHP acts as an intermediary between institutions like universities, libraries, museums, and archives and LGBTQ people and organizations. Join us for this presentation on the history of IHP, an overview of the IHP model, and a discussion on the challenges faced in developing and implementing a public history and community archiving project and nonprofit in the Deep South. |
| TBA |
Cruising for Queer Histories Outside of the Gay Bar
Alexis Rodriguez, Vice President, LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida
In 2021, the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida celebrated its 16th anniversary, a milestone representing persistent collaboration between community members and university historians to interpret the region’s queer past. Recently, the Museum has expanded its preservation efforts to locate instances of queer community building that occurred outside of gay bars and nightclubs. This presentation will address the challenges of the Museum’s evolution by focusing on two specific cases: an archiving effort to document regional LGBTQ sports leagues and an exhibition that wrestled with the shifting generational perspectives on what defines a “queer space.” Though gay bars have long represented a “safe haven” for the LGBTQ community, the future of these spaces is precarious – as evidenced in Orlando with the 2020 closure of the iconic Parliament House after operating for 45 years. Given this shifting landscape, how might queer historiography adapt to reflect a more nuanced understanding of community beyond its traditional preoccupation with barroom legends? What are the spaces (and the people who find belonging within them) that we have neglected in our interpretation of the queer past and how can new collecting endeavors address these oversights? In addition to reflecting upon these questions, the presentation will contribute to a larger reimagining of queer theory to be more radically inclusive within public history scholarship and praxis. |
| TBA |
Louisiana Trans Oral History Project
Sophia Ziegler, Founder/Oral Historian, Louisiana Trans Oral History Project Nathalie Nia Faulk, Co-Director, Last Call Oral History Project SK Groll, Doctoral Student, Louisiana State University and Program Coordinator, Baton Roots Community Farm
This presentation describes a project to collect and share stories of trans joy across Louisiana. The Louisiana Trans Oral History Project, together with Last Call Oral History Project, are creating a online mapping tool to enable trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals from across the state to contribute audio and video narratives, specifying places that are personally important to them as sites of trans joy. For our purposes, a place of trans joy can include any location that individuals feel included, loved or honored, as well as places where significant personal or communal events happened. Collectively, these narratives will create rich documentation of one of Louisiana’s most marginalized communities. |
| TBA |
Repeated Session TBD |
|
| 2:45pm – 3:45pm |
Block 3
| Room |
Session and Presenters |
| TBA |
Community-Led Archival Research
James Capello, PhD, Organizer, Southern Fried Queer Pride and Professor of Anthropology, Savannah College of Art and Design
Participants from local community organizations who identify as non-binary and/or trans made quilts along with offering oral histories. We created a community art show with the archival materials and worked with Emory to donate the materials that were created. Along with sewing their own quilt squares in response to prompts such as “who is chosen family for you?” I recorded and documented their oral histories and engagement in activism in Atlanta. I also documented through photographs and field notes trans led activist events from 2018 to 2021. Since SFQP is led by Black, Indigenous, and Latinx trans people many of these events were immigration rallies, documenting the stories of trans women being held by I.C.E., and prison abolition events. Hopefully this presentation can act as a example of a successful led community research and archival project that documents how radical the Deep South can be. |
| TBA |
Documenting Queer Without Fear in Georgia
Morna Gerrard, Women’s/Gender and Sexuality Collections Archivist, Georgia State University Library Rachel Senese, Digital Projects Coordinator, Georgia State University Library
The presenters will discuss Georgia State University’s approach to collecting LGBTQ+ materials, and its willingness to take risks with what it makes accessible online. |
| TBA |
Outrageous Oral
Robert Emery, President, The Dallas Way
Outrageous Oral is the most entertaining aspect of The Dallas Way. Speakers from all walks of LGBT+ life present their personal stories. They may seem improvised, but they are not. They are personal, vulnerable, and compelling. They are intimate, funny, poignant, encouraging, heartbreaking, and captivating. Ultimately, they are celebratory. Over 100 personal LGBT+ stories have been shared thus far. This break-out session focuses on how to produce an Outrageous Oral event from speakers to marketing, all the way through permanently storing them in an LGBT+ archive. |
| TBA |
Coming Out Together to Share Our History: A Collaborative Exhibition (Panel Discussion
Francesca Marini, PhD, Associate Professor and Programming & Outreach Librarian, Texas A&M University Libraries
Christian Kelleher, PhD, Director, University of Houston Special Collections and Archives
Vince Lee, Archivist, University of Houston Special Collections and Archives
Rebecca Hankins, Curator and Archivist, Texas A&M University University Libraries
Brian Riedel, PhD, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Rice University
This panel presentation brings together different institutions in College Station, and Houston, Texas, and discusses a new collaborative exhibition, Coming Out Together to Share our History: LGBTQIA+ Collections in College Station, Houston, and Beyond, on display at the Texas A&M University Cushing Memorial Library and Archives from July 12 through December 16, 2021. The exhibition showcases contributions by nine organizations, including academic and community archives and represents unique histories and archival collections. The partners are: JD Doyle Archive, Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of GLBT History, The Charles Law Archives, The Botts Collection, The Banner Project, Nick and Jake Studio, Texas A&M, University of Houston, Rice University). This panel will discuss how the exhibition came together and what its goals were, and it will address how the exhibition is being positively received. It will also briefly discuss the organizations and collections represented in the exhibition, as well as future plans. This exhibition is an example of successful community outreach and collaboration. |
| TBA |
Unspoken, Untold: Bolstering Underrepresented Histories with Oral and Archival History
Maria Katsulos, Student, Southern Methodist University
Bethany Bass, Student, Southern Methodist University
Hannah Hall, Student, Southern Methodist University
In 2011, the Princeton Review ranked Southern Methodist University as the eleventh most gay-unfriendly university in the country. This past August, Campus Pride listed it among ten religious schools living up to LGBTQ-inclusive values. What has changed over this past decade — and how? Managed by a diverse group of LGBTQ+ students navigating a predominantly white, Christian university, SMU PRIDE combines archival, oral, and institutional history to better understand the queer community’s roots at SMU. This panel will discuss the group’s research process and their findings. Using archival material from the 1980s onwards and oral history interviews, our panelists and their project will illuminate the need for student-driven projects investigating their own histories. |
| TBA |
Repeated Session TBD |
|
| 4:00pm – 5:00pm |
Block 4
| Room |
Session and Presenters |
| TBA |
Using Archives in “Queericulums”
Aaron Elkins, PhD, Associate Professor of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman’s University
Given that queer culture and history are not taught in a comprehensive fashion in the United States public education system, queer youths, young adults, and adults are effectively left to situate themselves within such cultural and historical narratives as they choose to construct; as a result, these constructed narratives may be incomplete and value hegemonic culture and history over accuracy. How does the idea of using queer community archives to prepare a “queericulum” that presents a more inclusive and comprehensive depiction of queer culture and history interact with the notions of queer liberation? How can we use counter stories about queer h0istory and culture in queer community archives to more effectively work towards dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy in the queer community and in mainstream society? |
| TBA |
Early Queer History of Houston, TX
Randolph Tibbets, Independent Art Researcher and Curator
My research has focused on what has proved to be the earliest known LGBTQ history of Houston, Texas. I have explored a group of artists, writers and actors who were active in the city in the 1930s and early 1940s. Using archival, but also extra-archival resources, I have sketched the context in which they worked in a southern city in the VERY pre-Stonewall era. The LGBTQ people I have researched did their working and living with a shared sense of group consciousness, in a time and place when such groups are virtually unknown outside the major cities of New York, London and Paris. There are some limited archival materials relating to the group, so part of my challenge has been to link those archived items with other resources (gossip, life circumstance, visual/written/acted works from their artistic lives) in order to illuminate a previously unknown LGBTQ cohort in what might be considered an unlikely time/place. |
| TBA |
Oral history interviews and gaps in queer archival records
Rebecca Russell, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, Rice University
Amanda Focke, Head of Special Collections, Rice University
Brian Riedel, PhD, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality, Rice University
This presentation will discuss the importance of oral history interviews filling in gaps in the archival record for queer history. Examples include a collection of oral histories conducted by Rice undergraduates with Houstonians who have made contributions to the LGBTQ+ community and a collection of a community partnership’s efforts to collect, preserve, and make available the oral histories of individuals impacted by HIV / AIDS epidemic in Houston, Harris County and Southeast Texas, with special emphasis on those who experienced the early years of the epidemic. |
| TBA |
The LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana: A Community Success Story
Kathleen Conlon, Acting President, LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana
Frank Perez, President, LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana
This presentation outlines how the project started, its goals and projects, and challenges faced archiving LGBT+ history in Louisiana. |
| TBA |
Student Panel: Exploring the Experiences of Graduate Students in LGBTQ History and Archiving Fields
Kendel Bolton
Emma Frank
Lev Rosenberger
Shannon Wheeler
Join graduate students for this conversation about the challenges and opportunities faced by those doing research and internship work around LGBTQ history and archiving in the South. This facilitated discussion will ask current and recently graduated students to explain their projects, explore the challenges they faced in this work, detail the benefits they received from their projects, and discuss ways in which they feel students can be better supported in their coursework and internships. |
| TBA |
Repeated Session TBD |
|
| 5:00pm – 7:00pm |
Break |
| 7:00pm |
Evening Options
Visit the LGBT Historical Marker at the Gay Crossroads
Visit the Round-Up Saloon, the world’s largest LGBT Cowboy Dance Hall |
