Editor’s Introduction

The current issue of the Oral History Review is a special issue on the theme of “Listening to and Learning from LGBTQ Lives,” and it provides the opportunity for readers to explore the interpretively rich and methodologically challenging work being produced in the field of queer oral history. I heartily thank Stephanie Gilmore, who ably served as interim editor during the year I was on sabbatical leave, for suggesting and undertaking this special issue. Her guest editor’s introduction previews the ten articles in this issue and the varied approaches to LGBTQ oral history they take: theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical.

I, along with the rest of the editorial team, join Stephanie in dedicating this issue of the Review to Cliff Kuhn, executive director of the Oral History Association, who passed away on November 8, 2015. I first met Cliff in the mid-1990s when I was conducting research for my doctoral dissertation in Atlanta. Cliff welcomed me to the city, and I quickly benefited from his vast knowledge not only of oral history, but also Atlanta history, Southern history, and social movement history—and equally from his network of oral historians and public historians in the area. For some twenty plus years, he remained a steadfast colleague and valued friend: always supportive of my work, ever generous with his time, and simply fun to be around. Our friendship and collaboration deepened during the time he served as executive director of the association and I as editor of the Oral History Review. I could not have asked for a more supportive “boss”: Cliff left editorial matters in my hands but continually offered the resources of the association to the journal. As Troy Reeves, managing editor, put it, Cliff never hesitated to “go to bat” for the Review, which allowed us to expand the editorial team and launch new initiatives. Individually and collectively, we all felt Cliff’s support. One of the newest members of the editorial team, pedagogy section coeditor Abby Perkiss, observed of Cliff that he was always “so accessible and welcoming to younger scholars”—precisely what I experienced some twenty years ago.

Abby Perkiss is joined by Ken Woodward as the Review’s new pedagogy section editors. (And it has been my pleasure and my honor to have published their work in the pages of the journal.) Abby will cover postsecondary pedagogy and Ken will be on the K-12 beat. Welcome both! They replace the almost truly irreplaceable Glenn Whitman, who launched the pedagogy section of the Review in 2012 and who guest-edited a special issue on oral history pedagogy in 2011. Under his creative and passionate direction, the pedagogy section has become a lively forum for discussing teaching—and learning—oral history. Thank you, Glenn!

Finally, let me note what a pleasure it is to return to the editorship of the Oral History Review. Nice as it was to be away, it is even nicer to be back. Along with thanking Stephanie Gilmore for serving as interim editor, my thanks go to the rest of the editorial team for—how shall I put this?—managing so very well without me: Jen, Dave, Elinor, and (first, last, and always) Troy.