Outliers and Outlaw
Digital Humanities Project + Documentary
Narrative: In February 2020, collaborators including project director Dr. Judith Raiskin from the University of Oregon and I created a project website for Outliers and Outlaws: The Eugene Lesbian History Project, a digital humanities project presented across a variety of modalities to tell the story of the lesbians who migrated to Eugene, Oregon in the 1960s-80s and forged an alternative community that ultimately transformed mainstream culture and politics.
Through 2020 and 2021, we developed an online exhibit interpreting Eugene lesbian history through curated assets from the lesbian oral history project and physical archive housed at the University of Oregon Library.
In 2022, we assisted the University of Oregon Museum of Cultural and Natural History to develop a brick and mortar exhibit using our digital exhibit as its basis.
In 2024, we released a full-length documentary featuring eight participants, now in their 70s-80s who narrate Eugene lesbian history against the backdrop of their lives today as they pursue their creative, intellectual, and political passions.
Outliers and Outlaws is a dimensional portrait of a group of queer elders that dislodges the objectifying view of the common tragedy/pain narratives of the LGBTQ+ past. These women serve as a model for how to live in hard times with hope, humor, and commitment to social change. Eugene lesbian history is a legacy for the current generation to deal effectively with the contemporary violence of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.