Summer Institute:
Storytelling and Social Justice

This intensive summer seminar engages with in oral history and creative practice, arts and critical theory, public history, micropublications, and community-facing research.

This year’s seminar collaborates with Montreal artist-run Centre des arts actuels SKOL in dialogue with their COMMUNITIES project. The seminar focuses on intergenerational collaboration and community spaces, ecology, and 2SLGBTQIA+ artists, bridging SKOL’s upcoming exhibitions on publication and the bookstore, ecology, community gardens, and festivals.

Storytelling, as an art and a practice, occupies a central, necessary role in activist and social justice movements. The testimonial power of oral history shapes cross-disciplinary impact in public history, museum/curatorial practice, and the arts as well as ethics for research creation and scholarship.

The summer seminar will center hands-on tasks and workshops for graduate students doing coursework and advanced undergrads, exploring mutual forces of storytelling and social justice towards flourishing student projects. These focus areas are principles of shared authority, performance, intergenerational transmission, scholarship on oral-history performance, and micropublications (artist books, graphic novels, photo essays, and zines).

Students will share in hands-on, practice-based workshops, methods, and course materials in critical theory. The 2026 summer institute incubates student projects with the chance to learn from program alumni and leading experts in the field spanning Concordia faculty, Montreal artists, and community organizations.

“Storytelling and Social Justice” involves full-time activities from 13-29^th of May. These include curated visits to field sites, galleries and museums, research panels and an outing to a performance in the evening. Collaborative activities with community partners are part of the intensive and will take place in addition to seminar meeting times.

Please be advised that a complete schedule for these course activities will be available in late April or early May, 2026. See tentative schedule below. 

We welcome all levels of experience. The Summer Institute is oriented towards graduate students and senior undergraduate students (from Canada and beyond) as well as researchers, activists and community members who wish to learn more about the theory, practice and ethics of oral history and are invested in going public with their work. The program involves visits to Montreal arts and community organizations between May 13-29. The activities will include several afternoons and evenings. Participants who apply agree to participate in them.

Your application must include the following:

• Letter of Intent (500 to 750 words). Please describe why you wish to participate in the Summer Institute. Tell us why you are interested in oral history and what it would mean for you to explore the relationship between oral history and creative practice. – If you have a current oral history project, please include a brief project description. If your goal is to develop a new project, please include a brief proposal of your ideal project.
• Curriculum Vitae (CV). 1 to 2 pages.
• Transcript (for student applicants only). Please include a copy of your most recent transcript, whether from Concordia or another institution. Unofficial Concordia transcripts are acceptable.

Please submit your application by Sunday, March 23, 23:59 EST to donna.whittaker@concordia.ca.

Contact

For any academic inquiries or additional questions about this Summer Institute, reach out to VK Preston.