Profile

Judith Raiskin co-created The Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project with Linda Long, Curator of Manuscripts in UO Special Collections and University Archives. The project consists of filmed interviews with 83 lesbian-identified women who lived in Eugene between 1965 and 1995, most of whom are now in their 70s and 80s. Included in the archives is a large collection of photographs, journals, diaries, and other documents related to the collective businesses, communal living, and cultural productions of this community. These interviews are available through Oregon Digital and are fully transcribed and searchable. Based on the interviews, Professor Raiskin has created a website and an interactive digital exhibit of 11 thematic “rooms” that include 23 edited composite short films that share perspectives from all the narrators, provides historical and scholarly context on different topics, and offers links and ideas for teaching this material: https://outliersoutlaws.uoregon.edu/.

Professor Raiskin is currently working on Outliers and Outlaws, a documentary about lesbian Eugene.

Professor Raiskin has also published on same-sex parenting: "Parenting Without Protection: How Legal Status Ambiguity Affects Gay and Lesbian Parenthood." Relying on interviews with gay, lesbian and transgender parents, this project examines how, in the context of legal instability, these parents make use of legal and extra-legal resources to secure their family relationships. As a literary critic, Professor Raiskin edits the Norton Critical Edition of Jean Rhys's novel Wide Sargasso Sea and is the author of Snow on the Cane Fields: Women Writers and Creole Subjectivity.