Eight students of all majors had the exciting opportunity to connect with members of Beloit’s LGBTQ+ community and help to preserve Beloit’s queer history through a series of interviews, document analysis, and archive development.
On Sunday, March 24, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Michael Dango, Assistant Professor and Chair of English, and his Queer Theory, Film, and Communities class held an oral history harvest at the Beloit Historical Society focused around lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) experiences in the surrounding community.
Olivia Alvarado’25’s role in this event was primarily to conduct interviews, but other preparation beforehand included working with classmates to make posters and advertise on social networks. As a McNair Program Scholar and two-time Duffy Partnerships participant, Alvarado is no stranger to this kind of work.
Though the turnout was lower than expected, Alvarado enjoyed the event, and she and her peers could still see the importance of what they have been doing throughout the semester as a stepping stone to success.
“Similar to how the Beloit International Film Festival was not an overnight success, our work sets a sustainable precedent for being an ongoing event.”
Additionally, through this event, students boasted about their countless reflections on their respective placements, such as deciding an object’s identity and historical value, as well as how to appraise and archive it.
April 15, 2024
Share:
Open gallery
Related Stories
