March is Women's History Month. This is an annual observance where we take time to acknowledge and highlight the many achievements and contributions of women in society. In the United States, it has been a tradition for the President of the United States to sign a proclamation to recognize the observance (link to the 2025 proclamation from the White House).

Want to learn more about the month and observance? Here are some online resources:

• Women's History Month site from the U.S. Government.
• The Wikipedia entry, which provides some additional information for the observance internationally. This entry includes links to previous US presidential proclamations if you wish to view them going back to the mid-1980s. You can also check the list of references for additional information.
• Women's History Month from the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum.
• Women's History Month from the National Women's History Museum.

You can also visit Hutchins Library to find books and other resources on women's history and accomplishments during March and throughout the year. I did some searching in the library catalog, and I found some books that may be of interest. Books are listed in no particular order. If you need assistance finding these or other resources, you can visit the Reference Desk at Hutchins Library or contact us via chat on the library website. Our website also offers additional information on ways to contact us.

Herstory by Deborah G. Ohrn (Editor); Gloria Steinem (Introduction by); Ruth Ashby (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 305.409 H5726

ISBN: 9780670854349

Publication Date: 1995-06-01

This book contains 120 biographical sketches of women who changed the world, placing them in the context of their times, & taking the viewpoint that women's history has largely been ignored. The section on Mead's anthropological work also includes two lesser-known female anthropologists: Elsie Clews Parsons & Ruth Benedict. Introduction by Gloria Steinem, extensive bibliography, & three indexes: geographical, alphabetical, & occupational.

 

Mobilizing Minerva by Kimberly Jensen

Call Number: Stacks 940.373 J547m 2008

ISBN: 9780252032370

Publication Date: 2008-02-08

American women did more than pursue roles as soldiers, doctors, and nurses during World War I. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War reveals women's motivations for fighting for full citizenship rights both on and off the battlefield. The war provided chances for women to participate in the military, but also in other male-dominated career paths. Intense discussions of rape, methods of protecting women, and proper gender roles abound as Kimberly Jensen draws from rich case studies to show how female thinkers and activists wove wartime choices into long-standing debates about woman suffrage and economic parity. The war created new urgency in these debates, and Jensen forcefully presents the case of women participants and activists: women's involvement in the obligation of citizens to defend the state validated their right of full female citizenship.

 

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Call Number: Stacks 510.925 S554h 2016

ISBN: 9780062363596

Publication Date: 2016-09-06

The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA at the leading edge of the feminist and civil rights movement, whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space--a powerful, revelatory contribution that is as essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America as Between the World and Me and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The basis for the smash Academy Award-nominated film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South's segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam's call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black "West Computing" group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA's greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country's future.  

 

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Call Number: Stacks 973.932 O122b 2018

ISBN: 9781524763138

Publication Date: 2018-11-13

 In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.   In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.

 

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft; Carol H. Poston (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 305.42 W864v 1988

ISBN: 9780393024272

Publication Date: 1987-10-01

The First Edition of this Norton Critical Edition was both an acclaimed classroom text and ahead of its time. This Second Edition offers the best in Wollstonecraft scholarship and criticism since 1976, providing the ideal means for studying the first feminist document written in English.

 

 

Bell Hooks: the Last Interview by bell hooks; Mikki Kendall (Introduction by)

Call Number: Stacks 305.488 H784b 2023

ISBN: 9781685890797

Publication Date: 2023-07-18

 bell hooks was a prolific, trailblazing author, feminist, social activist, cultural critic, and professor. Born Gloria Jean Watkins, bell used her pen name to center attention on her ideas and to honor her courageous great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. hooks's unflinching dedication to her work carved deep grooves for the feminist and anti-racist movements. In this collection of 7 interviews, stretching from early in her career until her last interview, she discusses feminism, the complexity of rap music and masculinity, her relationship to Buddhism, the "politic of domination," sexuality, and love and the importance of communication across cultural borders. Whether she was sparking controversy on campuses or facing criticism from contemporaries, hooks relentlessly challenged herself and those around her, inserted herself into the tensions of the cultural moment, and anchored herself with love.

 

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Call Number: Stacks 824.92 G285b 2014

ISBN: 9780062282712

Publication Date: 2014-08-05

 A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched cultural observers of her generation In these funny and insightful essays, Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics.

 

Sister Outsider by Audre. Lorde

Call Number: Stacks 824.914 L867s 2020

ISBN: 9780143134442

Publication Date: 2020-02-25

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature, with a foreword by Mahogany L. Browne. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.

 

This Bridge Called My Back by Gloria Anzaldúa (Editor); Cherríe Moraga (Editor)

Call Number: Stacks 820.809 T448

ISBN: 9781438454382

Publication Date: 2015-03-01

Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, "the complex confluence of identities--race, class, gender, and sexuality--systemic to women of color oppression and liberation." Reissued here, nearly thirty-five years after its inception, the fourth edition contains an extensive new introduction by Moraga, along with a previously unpublished statement by Gloria Anzaldúa. The new edition also includes visual artists whose work was produced during the same period as Bridge, including Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, and Yolanda López, as well as current contributor biographies. Bridge continues to reflect an evolving definition of feminism, one that can effectively adapt to, and help inform an understanding of the changing economic and social conditions of women of color in the United States and throughout the world.

 

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens by Alice Walker

Call Number: Stacks 828 W177s

ISBN: 9780151445257

Publication Date: 1983-10-10

As a woman, writer, mother, and feminist, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminism, incorporating what she calls the “womanist” tradition of African American women.

 

 

 

Need or want some popular and/or academic articles? You can try one of our databases. Please note: to access our databases off campus you will need to authenticate with your Berea College credentials and DUO. These and other databases can be accessed through the library website under "Databases A-Z."

• Academic Search Complete
• Humanities International
• Alt Press Watch
• J-Stor
• CQ Researcher
• Project Muse
• Hein Online

 

Image credit: From the U.S. Embassy in Argentina This is a US Government publication and thus not subject to copyright so can be used by the public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pride Month is typically observed during the month of June. The idea came to life after the Stonewall Riots in New York City (link to Library of Congress). On June 28, 1969, police raided the bar Stonewall Inn. Activists resisted and rioted against the police. A year later, the first Pride Marches started in various U.S. cities. Recognition of the monthly celebration in the United States has been somewhat inconsistent over time. President Clinton first recognized it as Gay and Lesbian Month in 1999. President Obama expanded it beyond that to include the LGBT community, President Trump refused to acknowledge it. President Biden has observed it, including in his 2024 Presidential Proclamation for Pride Month (link to the White House briefing room). 

Hutchins Library joins in celebrating, and we encourage our community to come check out resources available for our campus community.

To start, here are 10 books you may want to check out and read. This is a small selection that includes fiction and nonfiction. Books are not listed in any particular order.  To find additional books on LGBTQIA topics or any other topic you can use the library catalog. You can also visit our Pride Books Display, which is located on the main floor next to the New Books Display across from the Circulation Desk. The Pride Display is curated by our library student workers.

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

Call Number: Stacks 306.766 J671a 2020

ISBN: 9780374312718

Publication Date: 2020-04-28

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

 

 

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson; Peter Parnell; Henry Cole (Illustrator)

Call Number: Hutchins Library Exhibit/Display - Print R5235an 2005

ISBN: 9780689878459

Publication Date: 2005-06-01

And Tango Makes Three is the bestselling, heartwarming true story of two penguins who create a nontraditional family. At the penguin house at the Central Park Zoo, two penguins named Roy and Silo were a little bit different from the others. But their desire for a family was the same. And with the help of a kindly zookeeper, Roy and Silo get the chance to welcome a baby penguin of their very own. Selected as an ALA Notable Children's Book Nominee and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, "this joyful story about the meaning of family is a must for any library" (School Library Journal, starred review).

 

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

Call Number: Young Adult B3615ci 2021

ISBN: 9781547606641

Publication Date: 2021-06-29

It's 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl's display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again. Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella's mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all--and in the process, they learn that there's more to Cinderella's story than they ever knew . . . This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they've been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

 

 

Flamer by Mike Curato (Illustrator)

Call Number: Graphic Novels 741.597 C975f

ISBN: 9781627796415

Publication Date: 2020-09-01

I know I'm not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They're mean, and scary, and they're always destroying something or saying something dumb or both.I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe. It's the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone's going through changes--but for Aiden, the stakes feel higher. As he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can't stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance. Award-winning author and artist Mike Curato draws on his own experiences in this debut graphic novel, telling a difficult story with humor, compassion, and love.

 

Gender Queer: a Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Call Number: Graphic Novels 306.7608 K754g

ISBN: 9781549304002

Publication Date: 2019-05-28

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns,thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fan fiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates,friends, and humans everywhere.  

 

This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson; David Levithan (Introduction by)

Call Number: Exhibit/Display - Print 306.76 D272b 2021

ISBN: 9781728254326

Publication Date: 2021-09-07

The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender! Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBTQ also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention hilarious illustrations. Inside this revised and updated edition, you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask, with topics like: Stereotypes--the facts and fiction. Coming out as LGBT. Where to meet people like you. The ins and outs of gay sex. How to flirt. And so much more! You will be entertained. You will be informed. But most importantly, you will know that however you identify (or don't) and whomever you love, you are exceptional. You matter. And so does this book. This book is for: LGBTQIA+ teens, tweens, and adults. Readers looking to learn more about the LGBTQIA+ community. Parents of gay kids and other LGBT youth. Educators looking for advice about the LGBTQIA+ community.

 

Uncomfortable Labels by Laura Kate Dale

Call Number: Stacks 306.768 D139u 2019

ISBN: 9781785925870

Publication Date: 2019-07-18

"So while the assumption when I was born was that I was or would grow up to be a neurotypical heterosexual boy, that whole idea didn't really pan out long term." In this candid, first-of-its-kind memoir, Laura Kate Dale recounts what life is like growing up as a gay trans woman on the autism spectrum. From struggling with sensory processing, managing socially demanding situations and learning social cues and feminine presentation, through to coming out as trans during an autistic meltdown, Laura draws on her personal experiences from life prior to transition and diagnosis, and moving on to the years of self-discovery, to give a unique insight into the nuances of sexuality, gender and autism, and how they intersect. Charting the ups and downs of being autistic and on the LGBT spectrum with searing honesty and humour, this is an empowering, life-affirming read for anyone who's felt they don't fit in.

 

Vice Patrol by Anna Lvovsky

Call Number: Stacks 306.766 L979v 2021

ISBN: 9780226769646

Publication Date: 2021-05-24

In the mid-twentieth century, gay life flourished in American cities even as the state repression of queer communities reached its peak. Liquor investigators infiltrated and shut down gay-friendly bars. Plainclothes decoys enticed men in parks and clubs. Vice officers surveilled public bathrooms through peepholes and two-way mirrors.   In Vice Patrol, Anna Lvovsky chronicles this painful story, tracing the tactics used to criminalize, profile, and suppress gay life from the 1930s through the 1960s, and the surprising controversies those tactics often inspired in court. Lvovsky shows that the vice squads' campaigns stood at the center of live debates about not only the law's treatment of queer people, but also the limits of ethical policing, the authority of experts, and the nature of sexual difference itself--debates that had often unexpected effects on the gay community's rights and freedoms. Examining those battles, Vice Patrol enriches understandings of the regulation of queer life in the twentieth century and disputes about police power that continue today. 

 

The Gay Revolution by Lillian Faderman

Call Number: Exhibit/Display - Print 306.766 F144g 2015

ISBN: 9781451694116

Publication Date: 2015-09-08

The fight for gay, lesbian and trans civil rights is the most important civil rights issue of the present day. Based on rigorous research and more than 150 interviews, The Gay Revolution tells this unfinished story not through dry facts but through dramatic accounts of passionate struggles, with all the sweep, depth and intricacies only an award-winning activist, scholar and novelist like Lillian Faderman can evoke. A defining account, this is the most complete and authoritative book of its kind.

 

The Savvy Ally by Jeannie Gainsburg

Call Number: Exhibit/Display - Print 306.76 G143s 2023

ISBN: 9781538169230

Publication Date: 2023-03-31

Bursting with passion and humor, The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate is a treasure trove for allies to the LGBTQ+ communities. This fully revised second edition includes: The most current information on identities and LGBTQ+ language. Tips for respectfully sharing, gathering, and using pronouns. LGBTQ+ etiquette, including common language bloopers to avoid. Tools for navigating difficult conversations. Best practices for creating LGBTQ+ inclusive spaces. Appropriate actions to take after messing up. Techniques for self-care and sustainable allyship. The Savvy Ally is a vital resource for teachers, mental health professionals, healthcare providers, college professors, faith leaders, family members, and friends who want to support and advocate for the LGBTQ+ people in their lives and help make the world a safer, more inclusive place. This informative, encouraging, and easy-to-understand guidebook will jump-start even the most tentative ally.

 

If you would like to find articles and other research on LGBTQIA topics, you could try the following periodical databases. To find these and other databases, you can visit our library website and click on "Electronic Resources" to get our full list of available databases and online resources.

 

• Academic Search Complete
• Alt Press Watch
• America: History and Life
• J-Stor
• LGBTQ Magazine Archive

 

Want to learn even more? Here are some free online resources from the web:

• "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month" from the Library of Congress.
• "LGBTQI+ Pride Month" from the National Archives and Records Administration.
• "LGBTQIA+ Pride Month: June 2024" from the U.S. Census Bureau for various statistics.

 

 

We continue celebrating women and their accomplishments now for Women's History Month and always. Today we are featuring 7 biographies of American first ladies. These books are available on our shelves, so feel free to visit the library and check them out.

Martha Washington by Helen Bryan

Call Number: Stacks 973.4109 W319zb

ISBN: 9780471158929

Publication Date: 2002-04-01

A contemporary anecdote not only confirms that Martha commanded respect in her own right during her lifetime, but also suggests an awkward truth later historians have preferred to ignore-that without Martha and her fortune, George might never have risen to social, military, and political prominence.Toward the end of his life, George Washington, war hero, retired president, and object of universal fame and veneration, was negotiating to purchase a plot of land in the new capital city, to be named in his honor. The seller, an aged veteran of the Revolution, was reluctant to part with the plot, even to so distinguished a purchaser. Washington persisted until the veteran's patience snapped: 'You think people take every grist that comes from you as the pure grain. What would you have been if you hadn't married the Widow Custis!' -from the Introduction to Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty. From the glittering social life of Virginia's wealthiest plantations to the rigors of winter camps during the American Revolution, Martha Washington was a central figure in some of the most important events in American history. Her story is a saga of social conflict, forbidden love affairs, ambiguous wills, mysterious death, heartbreaking loss, and personal and political triumph. Every detail is brought to vivid life in this engaging and astonishing biography of one of the best known, least understood figures in early American life.

 

 

Abigail Adams by Edith B. Gelles

Call Number: Stacks 973.44 A211zga 2002

ISBN: 9780415939454

Publication Date: 2002-02-08

In this book, Edith B. Gelles asserts that Abigail Adams' vivid, insightful letters are "the best account that exists from the pre- to the post-Revolutionary period in America of a woman's life and world." Adams' spontaneous, witty letters serve dual purposes for the modern reader: it provides an intriguing first hand account of pivotal historical events and it shows how these events from the Boston Tea Party to the War of 1812 entered the private sphere. Included in the book is a chronology, notes and reference section and a selected bibliography. This book will be a must for all scholars of American literature, history and politics seeking to understand this literary figure.

 

 

 

A Perfect Union by Catherine Allgor

Call Number: Stacks 973.5109 M1815za 2006

ISBN: 9780805073270

Publication Date: 2006-04-04

An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, groundbreaking portrait of the early days of the republic - and the birth of modern politics. When the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere, which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband, James. Within a few years, she had mastered both the social and political intricacies of the city, and by her death in 1849 was the most celebrated person in Washington. And yet, to most Americans, she's best known for saving a portrait from the burning White House, or as the namesake for a line of ice cream.Why did her contemporaries give so much adulation to a lady so little known today? In A Perfect Union, Catherine Allgor reveals that while Dolley's gender prevented her from openly playing politics, those very constraints of womanhood allowed her to construct an American democratic ruling style, and to achieve her husband's political goals. And the way that she did so - by emphasizing cooperation over coercion, building bridges instead of bunkers - has left us with not only an important story about our past but a model for a modern form of politics.Introducing a major new American historian, A Perfect Union is both an illuminating portrait of an unsung founder of our democracy, and a vivid account of a little-explored time in our history.

 

 

Mary Todd Lincoln by Jean H. Baker

Call Number: Stacks 973.709 L738zb 2008

ISBN: 9780393333039

Publication Date: 2008-10-17

This definitive biography of Mary Todd Lincoln beautifully conveys her tumultuous life and times. A privileged daughter of the proud clan that founded Lexington, Kentucky, Mary fell into a stormy romance with the raw Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln. For twenty-five years the Lincolns forged opposing temperaments into a tolerant, loving marriage. Even as the nation suffered secession and civil war, Mary experienced the tragedies of losing three of her four children and then her husband. An insanity trial orchestrated by her surviving son led to her confinement in an asylum. Mary Todd Lincoln is still often portrayed in one dimension, as the stereotype of the best-hated faults of all women. Here her life is restored for us whole.

 

 

Eleanor by David Michaelis

Call Number: Stacks 973.917 R781zmic 2020

ISBN: 9781439192016

Publication Date: 2020-10-06

In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt's remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Despite their inability to make each other happy, Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York's Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York's most important power couple in a generation. When Eleanor discovered Franklin's betrayal with her younger, prettier social secretary, Lucy Mercer, she offered a divorce and vowed to face herself honestly. Here is an Eleanor both more vulnerable and more aggressive, more psychologically aware and sexually adaptable than we knew. She came to accept FDR's bond with his executive assistant, Missy LeHand; she allowed her children to live their own lives, as she never could; and she explored her sexual attraction to women, among them a star female reporter on FDR's first presidential campaign, and younger men. Eleanor needed emotional connection. She pursued deeper relationships wherever she could find them. Throughout her life and travels, there was always another person or place she wanted to heal. As FDR struggled to recover from polio, Eleanor became a voice for the voiceless, her husband's proxy in presidential ambition, and then the people's proxy in the White House. Later, she would be the architect of international human rights and world citizen of the Atomic Age, urging Americans to cope with the anxiety of global annihilation by cultivating a "world mind." She insisted that we cannot live for ourselves alone but must learn to live together or we will die together. Drawing on new research, Michaelis's riveting portrait is not just a comprehensive biography of a major American figure, but the story of an American ideal: how our freedom is always a choice. Eleanor rediscovers a model of what is noble and evergreen in the American character, a model we need today more than ever.

 

 

Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Call Number: Stacks 328.7309 C641h 2014

ISBN: 9781476751443

Publication Date: 2014-06-10

Hillary Rodham Clinton's inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future. "All of us face hard choices in our lives," Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the center of world events. "Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become." In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted. Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm's way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, traveled nearly one million miles, and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications, and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women, youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day. Secretary Clinton's descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use "smart power" to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world--one in which America remains the indispensable nation.

 

 

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Call Number: Stacks 973.932 O122b 2018

ISBN: 9781524763138

Publication Date: 2018-11-13

 As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.   In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.

 

 

 

March is Women's History Month, a month to honor women's contributions in history and society. You can learn more about this observance by visiting these links:

• "Women's History Month", federal government website from the National Archives, Library of Congress and other agencies.
• The National Women's History Alliance, for 2024 the Women's History Month Theme is "Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion."
• Learn about some women's history firsts in this highlighted article from Access World News (Newsbank): "Women have made their mark in history." Note: if you are outside the Berea College domain, you may need to log in to access this resource. Access World News is our news resources database covering news from the nation and the world.

To celebrate and honor women's achievements and stories, here is a list of 8 nonfiction books available in our library that you can check out. This list is in no particular order, and it is a small sample of what is available in our collections. Want to find more? You can check out the library catalog via the library website.  Need help finding anything? Stop by the Reference Desk.

The Agitators by Dorothy Wickenden

Call Number: Stacks 974.768 W636a 2021

ISBN: 9781476760735

Publication Date: 2021-03-30

 From the executive editor of The New Yorker, a riveting, provocative, and revelatory history of abolition and women's rights, told through the story of three women--Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright--in the years before, during and after the Civil War.  In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland's Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a spectacular river raid in which she helped to liberate 750 slaves from several rice plantations. Wright, a "dangerous woman" in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize women's rights and anti-slavery conventions across New York State, braving hecklers and mobs when she spoke. Frances Seward, the most conventional of the three friends, hid her radicalism in public, while privately acting as a political adviser to her husband, pressing him to persuade President Lincoln to move immediately on emancipation. The Agitators opens in the 1820s, when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young homemakers bound by law and tradition, and ends after the war. Many of the most prominent figures of the era--Lincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison--are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and women, about the enlistment of Black troops, and about opposing interpretations of the Constitution. Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.

 

 

The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger

Call Number: Stacks 640.92 D771s 2021

ISBN: 9781324004493

Publication Date: 2021-05-04

The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and business people. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women--and they were mostly women--became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics' women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

 

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

Call Number: Stacks 576.5 D728zi 2021

ISBN: 9781982115852

Publication Date: 2021-03-09

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn't become scientists, she decided she would. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book's author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm...Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.

 

 

Code Girls by Liza Mundy

Call Number: Stacks 940.548 M965c 2017

ISBN: 9780316352536

Publication Date: 2017-10-10

 Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as code breakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

 

 

The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Call Number: Stacks 306.874 T884t 2021

ISBN: 9781250756121

Publication Date: 2021-02-02

 Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them. In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes.  Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King, and Louise Little were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. These three extraordinary women passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning--from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced. These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America's racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families' safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers. These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.

 

 

The Woman Who Would Be King by Kara Cooney

Call Number: Stacks 932.01 H365zc 2015

ISBN: 9780307956774

Publication Date: 2015-10-13

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power.   Hatshepsut--the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne--was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father's family. Her failure to produce a male heir, however, paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut out-maneuvered the mother of Thutmose III, the infant king, for a seat on the throne, and ascended to the rank of pharaoh. Shrewdly operating the levers of power to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh, Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. She successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt's most prolific building periods. Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power--and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

 

 

When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Cullors; asha bandele

Call Number: Stacks 323.119 K452w 2020

ISBN: 9781250306906

Publication Date: 2020-01-14

A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America--and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free. Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin's killer went free, Patrisse's outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country--and the world--that Black Lives Matter. When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele's reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.

 

 

The Sisterhood by Courtney Thorsson

Call Number: Stacks 820.992 T522s 2023

ISBN: 9780231204729

Publication Date: 2023-11-07

One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group--which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others--would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation. The Sisterhood tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American writing and cultural institutions. Drawing on original interviews with Sisterhood members as well as correspondence, meeting minutes, and readings of their works, Courtney Thorsson explores the group's everyday collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence, and eventually in academic departments as well--often in the face of sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal, professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well as the reasons for its dissolution. She considers the popular and critical success of Sisterhood members in the 1980s, the uneasy absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and how younger writers built on the foundations the group laid. Highlighting the organizing, networking, and community building that nurtured Black women's writing, this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for Black feminist collaboration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hutchins Library is pleased to announce that the Feminist Artists of Kentucky (link to their Facebook page) are presenting their 2024 exhibit in the main floor of the library. The exhibit is in honor of Women's History Month. The exhibit runs throughout the month of February and into middle of March. It can be viewed during library regular hours. The exhibit is free and open to the public .

The Feminist Artists of Kentucky are:

• Pat C. Jennings
• Mary Ann Shupe
• Patricia Watkins
• Karen Tillquist
• Heather Dent
• And guest artist Jackie Pullum

The artists provided the following statement for the exhibit:

"We are still here...

We are still working...

We are still relevant...

2024

Welcome to our celebration of Women's History Month. We are pleased to return to Berea College Hutchins Library for another year celebration of women and art. We are a group of mature working artists who combine our efforts and talents to expand our creativity and create art for social justice causes.

As a group, we meet weekly to create, critique, and expand growth in our art. We enthusiastically support social justice and work to bring light to the needs of our community and our world.

We believe women and art can change the world.

If you wish to purchase the for sale art, commission a custom piece, or make a donation, you can message us and follow us on Facebook at feministartistsofky.

Thank you for coming and we hope you enjoy our exhibit."

Celebrated annually on August 26 in the United States, Women's Equality Day commemorates the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. The 19th Amendment prohibits the federal government and states from denying the right to vote to U.S. citizens on the basis of sex. It was first celebrated in 1971. Congress designated the observance in 1973. Traditionally, the President of the United States issues a proclamation for the observance every year starting with President Richard Nixon in 1973. 

Here are some websites where you can learn more: 

• "From Suffrage Day to Women’s Equality Day: A Brief History of Celebrating August 26" via Library of Congress.
• "Women’s Equality Day" via National Women's History Alliance. 
• "Women’s Equality Day: August 26, 2023." Some facts and figures about it via the U.S. Census Bureau.

If you are interested in doing further research on this topic you can try the following databases, which you can find on the library website under "Electronic Resources:"

• Gale Virtual Reference Center. A collection of e-book reference works. 
• Hein Online. For legal and government documents research. 

From our shelves, here are some books that may be of interest: 

Gendered Citizenship by Rebecca DeWolf

Call Number: e-book

ISBN: 9781496228291

Publication Date: 2021-10-01

By engaging deeply with American legal and political history as well as the increasingly rich material on gender history, Gendered Citizenship illuminates the ideological contours of the original struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from 1920 to 1963. As the first comprehensive, full-length history of that struggle, this study grapples not only with the battle over women's constitutional status but also with the more than forty-year mission to articulate the boundaries of what it means to be an American citizen. Through an examination of an array of primary source materials, Gendered Citizenship contends that the original ERA conflict is best understood as the terrain that allowed Americans to reconceptualize citizenship to correspond with women's changing status after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Finally, Rebecca DeWolf considers the struggle over the ERA in a new light: focusing not on the familiar theme of why the ERA failed to gain enactment, but on how the debates transcended traditional liberal versus conservative disputes in early to mid-twentieth-century America. The conflict, DeWolf reveals, ultimately became the defining narrative for the changing nature of American citizenship in the era.  

 

American Women's Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776-1965 (LOA #332) by Susan Ware (Editor)

Call Number: 324.623 A512 2020

ISBN: 9781598536645

Publication Date: 2020-07-07

For the first time, here is the full, definitive story of the movement for voting rights for American women, of every race, told through the voices of the women and men who lived it. Here are the most recognisable figures in the campaign for women s suffrage, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but also the black, Chinese, and American Indian women and men who were not only essential to the movement but expanded its directions and aims. Here, too, are the anti-suffragists who worried about where the country would head if the right to vote were universal.

 

Suffrage At 100 by Stacie Taranto (Editor); Leandra Zarnow (Editor)

Call Number: 320.082 S946 2020

ISBN: 9781421438689

Publication Date: 2020-08-04

Suffrage at 100 looks at women's engagement in US electoral politics and government over the one hundred years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In the 2018 midterm elections, 102 women were elected to the House and 14 to the Senate--a record for both bodies. And yet nearly a century after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the notion of congressional gender parity by 2020--a stated goal of the National Women's Political Caucus at the time of its founding in 1971--remains a distant ideal. In Suffrage at 100, Stacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow bring together twenty-two scholars to take stock of women's engagement in electoral politics over the past one hundred years. This is the first wide-ranging collection to historically examine women's full political engagement in and beyond electoral office since they gained a constitutional right to vote. The book explores why women's access to, and influence on, political power remains frustratingly uneven, particularly for women of color and queer women. Examining how women have acted collectively and individually, both within and outside of electoral and governmental channels, the book moves from the front lines of community organizing to the highest glass ceiling. Essays touch on * labor and civil rights * education * environmentalism * enfranchisement and voter suppression * conservatism vs. liberalism * indigeneity and transnationalism * LGBTQ and personal politics * Pan-Asian, Chicana, and black feminisms * commemoration and public history * and much more. Contributors: Melissa Estes Blair, Eileen Boris, Marisela R. Chávez, Claire Delahaye, Nicole Eaton, Liette Gidlow, Holly Miowak Guise (Iñupiaq), Emily Suzanne Johnson, Dean J. Kotlowski, Monica L. Mercado, Johanna Neuman, Kathleen Banks Nutter, Katherine Parkin, Ellen G. Rafshoon, Bianca Rowlett, Sarah B. Rowley, Ana Stevenson, Barbara Winslow, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Nancy Beck Young.

 

Vanguard by Martha S. Jones

Call Number: 323.3409 J781v 2021

ISBN: 9781541600256

Publication Date: 2021-12-07

"An elegant and expansive history" (New York Times) of African American women's pursuit of political power--and how it transformed America      In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of Black women--Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more--who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.       Now revised to discuss the election of Vice President Kamala Harris and the vital contributions of Black women in the 2020 elections, Vanguard is essential reading for anyone who cares about the past and future of American democracy. 

 

 

Hutchins Library is pleased to announce that the Feminist Artists of Kentucky (link to their Facebook page) are presenting their March 2023 exhibit in the main floor of the library. The exhibit is in honor of Women's History Month. The exhibit runs throughout the month of March and can be viewed during library regular hours. The exhibit is free and open to the public .

The library would also like to announce it will host a reception for the artists on Wednesday, March 15 in the library's main floor. All are welcome to attend; the event is free and open to the public as well. The reception will run from 4:30pm to 6:00pm. Light refreshments will be served. 

The Feminist Artists of Kentucky are: 

• Pat C. Jennings
• Mary Ann Shupe
• Suzanne Thompson
• Patricia Watkins

and friends: 

• Jackie Pullum
• Karen Tillquist
• Linda Kuhlman

The artists submitted the following statement on the exhibit: 

We are still here...

We are still working...

We are still relevant...

Welcome to our celebration of Women's History Month. We are a group of mature working artists who combine our efforts and talents to expand our creativity and create art for exhibition and sale. We use our proceeds to fund a variety of social justice causes, both local and global. With an average age of 73, one of our biggest accomplishments was raising $25,000 to put a roof on a community center in Ghana. We have also funded a spay neuter clinic for Madison County animals, contributed funds to the local food bank, sponsored a student by procuring pottery tools to help her become a sustainable artist, and made numerous Little Library Quilts. 

If you wish to purchase the art for sale or make a donation you can message and follow us on Facebook at feministartisifky. 

Thank you for coming and hope you enjoy our exhibit. 

Please note: the library does not handle any transactions or sales related to the exhibit. You would need to contact the artists directly. 

Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives, is pleased to announce the following events at SC&A for the months of February and March 2023. 

3:00-4:00 PM, January 27 – February 24

Explore the Writings of Carter G. Woodson

Berea College graduate Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D. (1875-1950) was a prominent historian who initiated the field of Black studies. In 1926 he founded “Negro History Week,” the predecessor to today’s annual Black History Month. This year during Black History Month, Hutchins Library invites you to spend an hour (or more!) each week reading published and unpublished writings of Dr. Woodson that are in the Berea College Special Collections and Archives.

“Friday Finds” tours of Woodson’s books and letters will begin at the Hutchins Library foyer at 3 PM each Friday starting January 27 and ending February 24. To participate in these free events, please register in advance at https://bctrace.com/explore/. For additional information, or to schedule a group visit on days other than Fridays, please contact Tim Binkley at binkleyt@berea.edu or 859-985-3267.

3:00-4:00 PM, March 2 – 31

Explore the Writing of bell hooks

Former Berea College professor bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins, Ph.D., 1952-2021) is no longer with us. Fortunately, many of her writings and recordings are preserved in the Berea College Special Collections and Archives. Throughout Women’s History Month 2023, Hutchins Library invites you to spend an hour (or more!) each week reading from bell hooks’ writings and listening to episodes of the recent Think Humanities podcast series, “bell hooks: becoming, being, and beyond.” 

“Friday Finds” tours of bell hooks materials and recordings will begin at the Hutchins Library foyer at 3 PM each Friday in March. To participate in these free events, please register in advance at https://bctrace.com/explore/. For additional information, or to schedule a group visit on days other than Fridays, please contact Tim Binkley at binkleyt@berea.edu or 859-985-3267.

Special Collections and Archives presents "In Memoriam: bell hooks." This is an exhibit recalling and celebrating the life, career, contributions, and legacy of Dr. bell hooks. The exhibit features items and materials from the bell hooks papers collection. This exhibit is co-sponsored the bell hooks center and Hutchins Library.

The exhibit runs from February 1 through March 30, 2022. It can be viewed in the library's main floor during library regular hours. Note that access to the building, due to COVID, is limited to Berea College ID holders (faculty, students, and staff) at this time.

For visitors outside of campus, please contact Library Director Calvin Gross at 859-985-3274 or via e-mail at grossj@berea.edu to set up an appointment.

A sample of the carefully curated materials of the bell hooks papers, from Special Collections and Archives.

Hutchins Library is pleased to invite the campus community to see our book display to honor the life and works of bell hooks. The display can be viewed in the library's main floor during regular library hours. Books on the display are available for check out. The display will run through the end of January 2022.

Hutchins Library is pleased to announce "Feminist Expressions in Action", an art exhibit by  Berea College student Malaya Wright. The exhibit runs from August 23, 2021 through September 30, 2021. You can view the exhibit in the library's main floor on the center wall.

This event is free. However, due to COVID-19, Admission will be limited to Berea College faculty, staff, & students, and masks must be worn by all who attend.

The artist provided the following statement:

"I often question feminist theory; I ask: "How can we visualize these critiques? How can we navigate change?". These pieces are a response to my queries. Feminism addresses the uncomfortable - the muffled screams and fleeting glances. The whispers of change. I hope my art provides solace for the hushed and offers unabashedly bares nakedness to your soul. May you stare at them as they stare back at you."

There will be an artist talk and reception on Friday, September 3, 2021 from 4pm to 6pm. Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the campus community.

This program has been funded by the Berea College Women and Gender Studies Program.

Pride Month is commemorated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. In June of 1969, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn staged an uprising to resist the police harassment and persecution to which LGBTQ Americans were commonly subjected. This uprising marked the beginning of a movement to outlaw discriminatory laws and practices against LGBTQ Americans. Today, LGBTQ Pride Month celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, attracting millions of participants around the world.

In schools and classrooms, Pride Month is an excellent time to talk with students about LGBTQ people and their struggles to achieve equity and justice in all aspects of their lives. It is an opportunity to learn about important LGBTQ people in history, read literature that features LGBTQ people, analyze heterosexism and explore its causes and solutions. As with other similarly themed months, it is important not to isolate the exploration of LGBTQ people and culture into one month during the year. LGBTQ history is U.S. history and should be integrated into the curriculum throughout the school year. 

Description from:

“LGBTQ Pride Month and Education Resources.” Anti-Defamation League, www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/lgbtq-pride-month-and-education-resources.

Just Queer Folks by Colin R. Johnson

Call Number: 306.766 J665j 2013

Publication Date: 2013-06-14

aMost studies of lesbian and gay history focus on urban environments. Yet gender and sexual diversity were anything but rare in nonmetropolitan areas in the first half of the twentieth century. "Just Queer Folks "explores the seldom-discussed history of same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity in rural and small-town America during a period when the now familiar concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality were just beginning to take shape.a Eschewing the notion that identity is always the best measure of what can be known about gender and sexuality, Colin R. Johnson argues instead for a queer historicist approach. In so doing, he uncovers a startlingly unruly rural past in which small-town eccentrics, mannish farm women, and cross-dressing Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees were often just queer folks so far as their neighbors were concerned. Written with wit and verve, " Just Queer Folks "upsets a whole host of contemporary commonplaces, including the notion that queer history is always urban history.

 

Understanding Asexuality by Anthony F. Bogaert

Call Number: 305.8 B674u 2015

Publication Date: 2015-03-06

Asexuality can be defined as an enduring lack of sexual attraction. Thus, asexual individuals do not find (and perhaps never have) others sexually appealing. Some consider "asexuality" as a fourth category of sexual orientation, distinct from heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality. However, there is also recent evidence that the label "asexual" may be used in a broader way than merely as "a lack of sexual attraction." People who say they have sexual attraction to others, but indicate little or no desire for sexual activity are also self-identifying as asexual. Distinct from celibacy, which refers to sexual abstinence by choice where sexual attraction and desire may still be present, asexuality is experienced by those having a lack or sexual attraction or a lack of sexual desire. More and more, those who identify as asexual are "coming out," joining up, and forging a common identity. The time is right for a better understanding of this sexual orientation, written by an expert in the field who has conducted studies on asexuality and who has provided important contributions to understanding asexuality. This timely resource will be one of the first books written on the topic for general readers, and the first to look at the historical, biological, and social aspects of asexuality. It includes firsthand accounts throughout from people who identify as asexual. The study of asexuality, as it contrasts so clearly with sexuality, also holds up a lens and reveals clues to the mystery of sexuality.

Modern Homosexualities by Ken Plummer (Editor)

Call Number: 305.906 M689 1992

Publication Date: 1992-11-17

This book of nineteen original essays by activists and academics documents and analyses the dramatic changes in lesbian and gay experience over the last twenty years. It charts the growth of lesbian and gay studies, and examines key issues around communitites, identities, relationships, sexualities and politics. These essays, edited by a leading author in the field, herald a new confidence and maturity for the growing field of lesbian and gay studies.

 

Queer (In)Justice by Andrea Ritchie; Joey Mogul; Kay Whitlock

Call Number: 342.73 M696q 2011

Publication Date: 2011-02-15

A groundbreaking work that turns a "queer eye" on the criminal legal system, and winner of the2011 PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency Drawing on years of research, activism, and legal advocacy, Queer (In)Justiceis a searing examination of queer experiences--as "suspects," defendants, prisoners, and survivors of crime. The authors unpack queer criminal archetypes--like "gleeful gay killers," "lethal lesbians," "disease spreaders," and "deceptive gender benders"--to illustrate the punishment of queer expression, regardless of whether a crime was ever committed. Tracing stories from the streets to the bench to behind prison bars, the authors prove that the policing of sex and gender both bolsters and reinforces racial and gender inequalities. A groundbreaking work that turns a "queer eye" on the criminal legal system, Queer (In)Justiceilluminates and challenges the many ways in which queer lives are criminalized, policed, and punished.

April's reference book of the Month:  Woman and war.

In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization--particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination--and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them.

~ Recommended for students majoring in Woman and Gender Studies and History~

Women and War In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization--particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination--and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them. * Nearly 500 A-Z entries on women as combatants, spies, auxiliaries, medics, supporters, opponents, and victims of war from antiquity to the present and on all continents * Contributions from 140 leading scholars from the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe * Sidebars containing original documents from autobiographies, archives, and newspapers present firsthand coverage of women at war * Text enlivened by more than 70 photographs of women combatants, medical personnel, peace activists, spies, and secret agents by Bernard A. Cook (Editor)

Call Number: 355.0208 w872 2006

Publication Date: 2006-05-19

In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization--particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination--and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them. 

Post by Tim Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives:

I would like to share with you a new online exhibit of items from the Special Collections and Archives that has just been posted.

The Path to Woman Suffrage in the United States: 1848 – 1920 (https://scaexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/pathtowomansuffrage) highlights period print materials from the curio book collection and the archives that advocated for (or against) extending voting rights to women. Normally we would show these works as a physical exhibit behind glass. However, due to current circumstances, the exhibit will be online only. On-campus students, faculty, and staff may make appointments to view all items in the SCA reading Room via https://berea.libwizard.com/f/ReadingRoom. As an added feature, the online exhibit offers hyperlinks to free online copies of the featured texts. So even if you cannot come to the reading room, you can still read the works in question.

The exhibit was produced to accompany the National Archives pop-up display “Rightfully Hers” that is currently in the Hutchins Library foyer. (https://libraryguides.berea.edu/blog/Rightfully-Hers-Popup-Exhibit-Celebrates-Womens-Suffrage-Centennial-at-Hutchins-Library)

I hope that you will enjoy exploring both and gaining some insights about the struggle for equal rights.

May we all value our hard-won voting rights enough to exercise them this fall.

Post by Timothy Binkley, Head of Special Collections and Archives,

If you have walked into Hutchins Library lately, you are likely to have noticed something new in the foyer. It is a temporary “popup” display produced by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission (WSCC). These organizations are partnering with Berea College Special Collections and Archives to share the story of women’s fight for their right to vote in the United States.

Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote explores the history of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and the state of voting rights before and after the women’s suffrage movement. Consisting of four panels of images, insights, and quotations, the popup exhibit will be on view in the Hutchins Library foyer August 14 to December 14, 2020. The full museum exhibit in Washington, D.C. can be viewed online at https://museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers.

Concerning the exhibit, curator Corinne Porter noted that: “Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment provides an unparalleled opportunity to elevate the untold stories of women’s history.” “The exhibit at the National Archives and the Rightfully Hers popups are part of our nationwide initiative to share the story of the relentless struggle of diverse activists throughout U.S. history to secure voting rights for all American women.”

The National Archives is an independent federal agency that serves American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our Government, so people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. The WSCC was formed by the U.S. Congress to coordinate the nationwide commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment, which was officially ratified and signed into the Constitution on August 26, 1920. The National Archives’ Rightfully Hers popup display is presented by the WSCC, Unilever, Pivotal Ventures, Carl M. Freeman Foundation in honor of Virginia Allen Freeman, AARP, Denise Gwyn Ferguson, and the National Archives Foundation.

May this temporary exhibit remind every Berean that voting is an important right and responsibility.

* * * * *

Exhibit can be viewed inside the library during library regular hours. Due to COVID-19 at this point in time, only those with campus card ID access can enter the building. The exhibit will be on view through December 14, 2020.

          June 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots that gave way to what we know now as Pride. On June 28, 1969, police stormed the Stonewall Inn, causing an uproar from the LGBT+ community. Riots ensued, lasting 5 days, led by prominent figures such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. On June 28, 1970, a year after the Stonewall Riots, a march took place on Christopher Street with similar marches in Los Angeles and Chicago — they were the first Gay Pride marches in U.S. history. As we honor Stonewall’s 50th anniversary, we lift up and celebrate the fact that the milestones achieved in the LGBT+ movement were only possible because of the trailblazers who first stood up for their rights.

Trans Kids by Tey Meadow

Call Number: 306.768 M482t 2018

ISBN: 0520275039

Publication Date: 2018-08-17

Trans Kids is a trenchant ethnographic and interview-based study of the first generation of families affirming and facilitating gender nonconformity in children. Earlier generations of parents sent such children for psychiatric treatment aimed at a cure, but today, many parents agree to call their children new names, allow them to wear whatever clothing they choose, and approach the state to alter the gender designation on their passports and birth certificates. Drawing from sociology, philosophy, psychology, and sexuality studies, sociologist Tey Meadow depicts the intricate social processes that shape gender acquisition. Where once atypical gender expression was considered a failure of gender, now it is a form of gender. Engaging and rigorously argued, Trans Kids underscores the centrality of ever more particular configurations of gender in both our physical and psychological lives, and the increasing embeddedness of personal identities in social institutions.

Before Stonewall by Vern L. Bullough; John P. Dececco

Call Number: 305.906 B415

ISBN: 1560231920

Publication Date: 2002-11-21

Explore the early history of the gay rights movement! In the words of editor Vern L. Bullough: "Although there was no single leader in the gay and lesbian community who achieved the fame and reputation of Martin Luther King, there were a large number of activists who put their careers and reputations on the line. It was a motley crew of radicals and reformers, drawn together by the cause in spite of personality and philosophical differences. Their stories are told in the following pages." Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context illuminates the lives of the courageous individuals involved in the early struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights in the United States.

Invisible Families by Mignon Moore

Call Number: 306.848 M823i 2011

ISBN: 9780520269521

Publication Date: 2011-10-17

Mignon R. Moore brings to light the family life of a group that has been largely invisible--gay women of color--in a book that challenges long-standing ideas about racial identity, family formation, and motherhood. Drawing from interviews and surveys of one hundred black gay women in New York City, Invisible Families explores the ways that race and class have influenced how these women understand their sexual orientation, find partners, and form families. In particular, the study looks at the ways in which the past experiences of women who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s shape their thinking, and have structured their lives in communities that are not always accepting of their openly gay status. Overturning generalizations about lesbian families derived largely from research focused on white, middle-class feminists, Invisible Families reveals experiences within black American and Caribbean communities as it asks how people with multiple stigmatized identities imagine and construct an individual and collective sense of self.

The Battle over Marriage by Leigh Moscowitz

Call Number: 306.848 M896b 2013

ISBN: 0252038126

Publication Date: 2013-10-31

Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. In this thorough analysis, Leigh Moscowitz examines how prominent news outlets presented this issue from 2003 to 2012, a time when intense news coverage focused unprecedented attention on gay and lesbian life. During this time, LGBT rights leaders sought to harness the power of media to advocate for marriage equality and to reform their community's public image. Building on in-depth interviews with activists and a comprehensive, longitudinal study of news stories, Moscowitz investigates these leaders' aims and how their frames, tactics, and messages evolved over time. In the end, media coverage of the gay marriage debate both aided and undermined the cause. Media exposure gave activists a platform to discuss gay and lesbian families. But it also triggered an upsurge in opposing responses and pressured activists to depict gay life in a way calculated to appeal to heterosexual audiences. Ultimately, The Battle over Marriage reveals both the promises and the limitations of commercial media as a route to social change.

Understanding Asexuality by Anthony F. Bogaert

Call Number: 305.8 B674u 2015

ISBN: 9781442201002

Publication Date: 2015-03-06

Asexuality can be defined as an enduring lack of sexual attraction. Thus, asexual individuals do not find (and perhaps never have) others sexually appealing. Some consider asexuality as a fourth category of sexual orientation, distinct from heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality. However, there is also recent evidence that the label asexual may be used in a broader way than merely as a lack of sexual attraction. People who say they have sexual attraction to others, but indicate little or no desire for sexual activity are also self-identifying as asexual. Distinct from celibacy, which refers to sexual abstinence by choice where sexual attraction and desire may still be present, asexuality is experienced by those having a lack or sexual attraction or a lack of sexual desire. More and more, those who identify as asexual are coming out, joining up, and forging a common identity. The time is right for a better understanding of this sexual orientation, written by an expert in the field who has conducted studies on asexuality and who has provided important contributions to understanding asexuality. This timely resource will be one of the first books written on the topic for general readers, and the first to look at the historical, biological, and social aspects of asexuality. It includes firsthand accounts throughout from people who identify as asexual. The study of asexuality, as it contrasts so clearly with sexuality, also holds up a lens and reveals clues to the mystery of sexuality."

Love Is Love by Phil Jimenez (Illustrator); Elsa Charretier (Illustrator); Marc Andreyko

Call Number: 741.597 L897 2017

ISBN: 9781631409394

Publication Date: 2017-01-10

The comic book industry comes together to honor those killed in Orlando this year. From IDW Publishing, with assistance from DC Entertainment, this oversize comic contains moving and heartfelt material from some of the greatest talents in comics - - mourning the victims, supporting the survivors, celebrating the LGBTQ community, and examining love in today's world.

Hutchins Library is proud to announce that the Feminist Artists of Kentucky have set up a beautiful art display in the library's main floor. The display can be viewed during the month of March 2019 during regular library hours. The display serves to honor Women's History Month.

The artists provided the following short statement about the exhibit:

In recognition of Women’s History Month 2019, a new exhibit is on display at the Hutchins Library, Berea College for the entire month. The Feminist Artist of Kentucky are exhibiting their creativity by showing a range of individual talents and skills representing art through various mediums. The artist are six women who work collectively and individually to use their creative talents to engage in various forms of service projects and involvement locally, regionally and internationally that expresses art as social and political statements.

In addition, the artists will participate in an artist talk during a reception at the library. The reception details are as follows:

When: Thursday, March 14.

Time: 4:30pm to 6:pm

Where: Hutchins Library Main Floor

Refreshments will be provided. This event is free and open to the public.

Here are some photos from the exhibit:

Looking for Lilith was founded by Shannon Woolley Allison, Trina Fischer, and Jennifer Thalman Kepler in New York City, 2001. LFL is committed to collaboratively creating original theatre based on women’s history, both oral and written, both past history and history in the making. This feminist ensemble theatre company is dedicated to lifting up unheard and “underheard” stories. Defining Infinity, an original play, explores individuals’ stories about the spectrums of both gender and sexual orientation. Enlightening, thoughtful, and powerful, the play shares experiences of queer folks from all along both of these spectrums.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler; Gloria Steinem

Call Number: 822.914 E59v

ISBN: 0822217724

Publication Date: 2000

THE STORY: An Obie Award-winning whirlwind tour of a forbidden zone, THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES introduces a wildly divergent gathering of female voices, including a six-year-old girl, a septuagenarian New Yorker, a vagina workshop participant, a woman

 

LGBTQ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny by Alisha Gaddis

Call Number: 822.045 L687 2016

ISBN: 9781495025150

Publication Date: 2016-08-01

(Applause Acting Series). The first and only book of its kind, this cutting-edge and incredibly hysterical monologue book is specifically for actors auditioning for LGBTQ roles. LGBTQ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny features works by LGBT writers and comics (and their allies) who have written and/or performed for Comedy Central, Backstage magazine, NBC, the Huffington Post , the Onion , Second City, E!, and many more. This collection is the go-to source for the comedic monologue needs of actors seeking LGBT material, as well as a paean to LGBT characters and artists.

 

Almost Normal by Moody, Marc

Call Number: DVD 791.437 A452 2005

ISBN: 9781932134544

Publication Date: 2005

A 40 year old gay man is tired of the frustrations involved with being "not normal". He is heading for his dysfunctional parents' wedding anniversary party when he crashes his car and ends up in the hospital. While in a coma he experiences his high school world again but this time gay is normal and straight is outcast and shameful.

Vocabulary! 

Gender Identity: A sense of one’s self as trans*, genderqueer, woman, man, or some other identity, which may or may not correspond with the sex and gender one is assigned at birth.

Gender Expression: How one expresses oneself, in terms of dress and/or behaviors.  Society, and people that make up society characterize these expressions as "masculine,” “feminine,” or “androgynous.”  Individuals may embody their gender in a multitude of ways and have terms beyond these to name their gender expression(s).

Drag King:  A person (often a woman) who appears as a man. Generally in reference to an act or performance.  This has no implications regarding gender identity.

Drag Queen:  A person (often a man) who appears as a woman. Generally in reference to an act or performance. This has no implications regarding gender identity.

Cross Dresser (CD): A word to describe a person who dresses, at least partially, as a member of a gender other than their assigned sex; carries no implications of sexual orientation. Has replaced “Transvestite”

Check back next month to start the year off with an A!!

I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Call Number: 306.778 K488i 2006

ISBN: 0060817321

Publication Date: 2006

The New York Times bestselling, darkly funny memoir of a young New Yorker's daring dual life--advertising art director by day,glitter-dripping drag queen and nightclub beauty-pageant hopeful by night--was a smash literary debut for Josh Kilmer-Purcell, now known for his popular Planet Green television series The Fabulous Beekman Boys.His story begins here--before the homemade goat milk soaps and hand-gathered honeys, before his memoir of the city mouse's move to the country, The Bucolic Plague--in I Am Not Myself These Days,  with "plenty of dishy anecdotes and moments of tragi-camp delight" (WashingtonPost).

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler; Linda J. Nicholson (Editor)

Call Number: 305.3 B985g

ISBN: 0415900425

Publication Date: 1989-11-15

Since its publication in 1990, "Gender Trouble" has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. As Judith Butler writes in the major essay that stands as preface to the new edition, one point of "Gender Trouble" was 'not to prescribe a new gendered way of life, but to open of the field of possibility for gender.' Widely taught, and widely debated, "Gender Trouble" continues to offer a powerful critique of heteronormativity and of the function of gender in the modern world. Judith Butler's new preface situates "Gender Trouble" within the past decade of work on gender, and counters some common misconceptions about the book and its aims.

Changing Room by Laurence Senelick

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 0203411072

Publication Date: 2002-09-11

The answers to these questions - and much, much more - are to be found in The Changing Room , which traces the origins and variations of theatrical cross-dressing through the ages and across cultures. It examines: * tribal rituals and shamanic practices in the Balkans and Chinese-Tibet * the gender-bending elements of Greek and early Christian religion * the homosexual appeal of the boy actor on the traditional stage of China, Japan and England * the origins of the dame comedian, the principal boy, the glamour drag artiste and the male impersonator * artists such as David Bowie, Boy George, Charles Ludlam, Dame Edna Everage, Lily Savage, Candy Darling, Julian Clary and the New York Dolls. Lavishly illustrated with unusual and rare pictures, this is the first ever cross-cultural study of theatrical transvestism. It is a must for anyone interested in cross-dressing, theatre, and gender.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare; Elizabeth Story Donno (Editor); Penny Gay (Introduction by)

Call Number: 822.33 T7d 2017

ISBN: 1107126274

Publication Date: 2017-08-17

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This third edition of Twelfth Night retains the text edited and annotated by Elizabeth Story Donno for the first edition of 1985, and features an updated introduction by Penny Gay, which focuses on recent scholarship and performance history. Building on her Introduction to the second edition, Gay stresses the play's theatricality, its elaborate linguistic games and its complex use of Ovidian myths. She analyses the delicate balance Shakespeare strikes in Twelfth Night between romance and realism, and explores representations of gender, sexuality and identity in the text. A selection of new photographs completes the edition.

Man-made woman the dialectics of cross-dressing by Ciara Cremin

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 9781786801418

Publication Date: 2017

On July 27th, 2015, Colin Cremin overcame a lifetime of fear and repression and came to work dressed as a woman called Ciara. This book charts her personal journey as a male-to-female cross-dresser in the ever-changing world of gender politics. Interweaving the personal and the political, through discussions of fetishism, aesthetics and popular culture, Man-Made Woman explores gender, identity and pleasure through the lenses of feminism, Marxism and psychoanalytic theory. Cremin’s anti-moralistic approach dismantles the abjection associated with male-to-female cross dressing, examining the causes of its repression, and considers what it means to publicly materialise desire on her body. Emancipatory and empowering: Cremin interrogates her, his and our relationship to the gender binary. Man-Made Woman is an experiment in thought and practice through which both author and reader are drawn ultimately into a conflict with our material, ideological and libidinal relationship to patriarchal-capitalism.

Unsettling Assumptions by Pauline Greenhill (Editor); Diane Tye (Editor)

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 9780874218985

Publication Date: 2014-10-15

In Unsettling Assumptions, editors Pauline Greenhill and Diane Tye examine how tradition and gender come together to unsettle assumptions about culture and its study. Contributors explore the intersections of traditional expressive culture and sex/gender systems to question, investigate, or upset concepts like family, ethics, and authenticity. Individual essays consider myriad topics such as Thanksgiving turkeys, rockabilly and bar fights, Chinese tales of female ghosts, selkie stories, a noisy Mennonite New Year's celebration, the Distaff Gospels, Kentucky tobacco farmers, international adoptions, and more. In Unsettling Assumptions, folkloric forms express but also counteract negative aspects of culture like misogyny, homophobia, and racism. But expressive culture also emerges as fundamental to our sense of belonging to a family, an occupation, or friendship group and, most notably, to identity performativity and the construction and negotiation of power.

 

Queer monthly #5: All things Trans*

This month we will focus on trans*, looking into the sexual and gender aspects. Please bear with me, there are quite a view terms that we need to go over.

Vocabulary!

Trans*: The asterisk placed after Trans has been used in many different ways. Some folks think of it as being more inclusive towards gender non-conforming and non-binary folks. But others have offered critique that it feels exclusionary towards GNC and non-binary folks for enforcing a binary expectation to “fill in the blank" for trans man or trans woman.  There have also been discussions/critique regarding the origin of the asterisk.

Trans man: A person may choose to identify this way to capture their gender identity as well as their lived experience as a transgender person.  Some trans men may also use the term FTM or F2M to describe their identity.

Trans woman: A person may choose to identify this way to capture their gender identity as well as their lived experience as a transgender person.  Some transwomen may also use MTF or M2F to describe their identity.

Transgender: Adjective used most often as an umbrella term, and frequently abbreviated to “trans.” This adjective describes a wide range of identities and experiences of people whose gender identity and/or expression differs from conventional expectations based on their assigned sex at birth. Not all trans people undergo medical transition (surgery or hormones).  Some commonly held definitions:

1. Someone whose determination of their sex and/or gender is not universally considered valid; someone whose behavior or expression does not “match” their assigned sex according to society.

2. A gender outside of the man/woman binary.

3. Having no gender or multiple genders.

Transition: An individualized process by which transsexual and transgender people “switch” from one gender presentation to another. There are three general aspects to transitioning: social (i.e. name, pronouns, interactions, etc.), medical (i.e. hormones, surgery, etc.), and legal (i.e. gender marker and name change, etc.). A trans* individual may transition in any combination, or none, of these aspects.

Transsexual (TS): A person who lives full-time in a gender different than their assigned birth sex and gender.  Many pursue hormones and/or surgery. Sometimes used to specifically refer to trans people pursuing gender or sex confirmation.

Pronouns: Linguistic tools used to refer to someone in the third person.  Examples are they/them/theirs, ze/hir/hirs, she/her/hers, he/him/his.  In English and some other languages, pronouns have been tied to gender and are a common site of misgendering (attributing a gender to someone that is incorrect.)

Misgendering: Attributing a gender to someone that is incorrect/does not align with their gender identity.  Can occur when using pronouns, gendered language (i.e. “Hello ladies!”Hey guys”), or assigning genders to people without knowing how they identify (i.e. “Well, since we’re all women in this room, we understand…”).

Check out these listings for more information! The last one may surprise you!!

A Murder over a Girl by Ken Corbett

Call Number: 364.152 C789m 2016

Publication Date: 2016

 A psychologist's gripping, troubling, and moving exploration of the brutal murder of a possibly transgender middle school student by an eighth grade classmate. On Feb. 12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who had recently begun to call himself "Leticia" and wear makeup and jewelry to school. Profoundly shaken by the news, and unsettled by media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and of race integral to the case, psychologist Ken Corbett traveled to LA to attend the trial. As visions of victim and perpetrator were woven and unwoven in the theater of the courtroom, a haunting picture emerged not only of the two young teenagers, but also of spectators altered by an atrocity and of a community that had unwittingly gestated a murder. Drawing on firsthand observations, extensive interviews and research, as well as on his decades of academic work on gender and sexuality, Corbett holds each murky facet of this case up to the light, exploring the fault lines of memory and the lacunae of uncertainty behind facts. Deeply compassionate, and brimming with wit and acute insight, A Murder Over a Girl is a riveting and stranger-than-fiction drama of the human psyche.
 

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Call Number: F299s
Publication Date: 1993

Jess, a working-class woman living as a man, survives a period of homelessness, tries to unionize fellow workers, worries about being found out, and searches for community while undergoing a secret transsexual operation.

 

Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 1423728912

Publication Date: 2004

Written by a leading activist in the transgender movement, "Becoming a Visible Man" is an artful and compelling inquiry into the politics of gender. Jamison Green combines candid autobiography with informed analysis to offer unique insight into the multiple challenges of the female-to-male transsexual experience, ranging from encounters with prejudice and strained relationships with family to the development of an FTM community and the realities of surgical sex reassignment. For more than a decade, Green has provided educational programs on gender-variance issues for corporations, law-enforcement agencies, social-science conferences and classes, continuing legal education, religious education, and medical venues. His comprehensive knowledge of the processes and problems encountered by transgendered and transsexual people--as well as his legal advocacy work to help ensure that gender-variant people have access to the same rights and opportunities as others--enable him to explain the issues as no transsexual author has previously done. Brimming with frank and often poignant recollections of Green's own experiences--including his childhood struggles with identity and his years as a lesbian parent prior to his sex-reassignment surgery--the book examines transsexualism as a human condition, and sex reassignment as one of the choices that some people feel compelled to make in order to manage their gender variance. Relating the FTM psyche and experience to the social and political forces at work in American society, "Becoming a Visible Man" also speaks consciously of universal principles that concern us all, particularly the need to live one's life honestly, openly, and passionately.

Month 6 of Queer Corner's mini-lessons on Queer Theory attempts to explain gender, and its many attributes! 

Vocabulary! 

This is another long post, because there are so many things that need to be covered!

Gender: A social construct used to classify a person as a man, woman, or some other identity. Fundamentally different from the sex one is assigned at birth.

Gender Expansive: An umbrella term used for individuals who broaden their own culture’s commonly held definitions of gender, including expectations for its expression, identities, roles, and/or other perceived gender norms. Gender expansive individuals include those who identify as transgender, as well as anyone else whose gender in some way is seen to be stretching the surrounding society’s notion of gender.

Gender Fluid: A person whose gender identification and presentation shifts, whether within or outside of societal, gender-based expectations. Being fluid in motion between two or more genders.

Gender Outlaw: A person who refuses to be defined by conventional definitions of male and female.

Gender Non conforming (GNC):  people who do not subscribe to gender expressions or roles expected of them by society.

Gender Queer: A person whose gender identity and/or gender expression falls outside of the dominant societal norm for their assigned sex, is beyond genders, or is some combination of them.

Gender Variant: A person who varies from the expected characteristics of the assigned gender.

Next month we will discuss a little bit more about Trans*, as well as delve deeper into the Drag Community! 

As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto

Call Number: 305.906 C683a

ISBN: 0060192119

Publication Date: 2000

In 1967, after a baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment. On the advice of a renowned expert in gender identity and sexual reassignment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the boy was surgically altered to live as a girl. This landmark case, initially reported to be a complete success, seemed all the more remarkable since the child had been born an identical twin: his uninjured brother, raised as a boy, provided to the experiment the perfect matched control. The so-called twins case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine and the social sciences; cited repeatedly over the past thirty years as living proof that our sense of being male or female is not inborn but primarily the result of how we are raised. A touchstone for the feminist movement, the case also set the precedent for sex reassignment as standard treatment for thousands of newborns with similarly injured, or irregular, genitals. But the case was a failure from the outset. From the start the famous twin had, in fact, struggled against his imposed girlhood. Since age fourteen, when finally informed of his medical history, he made the decision to live as a male. John Colapinto tells this extraordinary story for the first time in As Nature Made Him. Writing with uncommon intelligence, insight, and compassion, he also sets the historical and medical context for the case, exposing the thirty-year-long scientific feud between Dr. John Money and his fellow sex researcher, Dr. Milton Diamond--a rivalry over the nature/nurture debate whose very bitterness finally brought the truth to light. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, As Nature Made Him is first and foremost a human drama of one man's-and one family's--amazing survival in the face of terrible odds. The human intimacy of the story is all the greater for the subject's courageous decision to step out from behind the pseudonym that has shrouded his identity for the past thirty years.

Beyond Trans by Heath Fogg Davis

Call Number: 306.768 D262b 2017

ISBN: 1479855405

Publication Date: 2017

Goes beyond transgender to question the need for gender classification. Beyond Trans pushes the conversation on gender identity to its limits: questioning the need for gender categories in the first place. Whether on birth certificates or college admissions applications or on bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or are these places and forms just mechanisms of exclusion? Heath Fogg Davis offers an impassioned call to rethink the usefulness of dividing the world into not just Male and Female categories but even additional categories of Transgender and gender fluid. Davis, himself a transgender man, explores the underlying gender-enforcing policies and customs in American life that have led to transgender bathroom bills, college admissions controversies, and more, arguing that it is necessary for our society to take real steps to challenge the assumption that gender matters. He examines four areas where we need to re-think our sex-classification systems: sex-marked identity documents such as birth certificates, driver's licenses and passports; sex-segregated public restrooms; single-sex colleges; and sex-segregated sports. Speaking from his own experience and drawing upon major cases of sex discrimination in the news and in the courts, Davis presents a persuasive case for challenging how individuals are classified according to sex and offers concrete recommendations for alleviating sex identity discrimination and sex-based disadvantage. For anyone in search of pragmatic ways to make our world more inclusive, Davis' recommendations provide much-needed practical guidance about how to work through this complex issue. A provocative call to action, Beyond Trans pushes us to think how we can work to make America truly inclusive of all people.

The Gendered Society by Michael S. Kimmel

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 1429403837

Publication Date: 2000

They say that we come from different planets (men from Mars, women from Venus), that we have different brain chemistries and hormones, and that we listen, speak, and even define our morals differently. How is it then that men and women live together, take the same classes in school, eat the same food, read the same books, and receive grades according to the same criteria? In The Gendered Society, Michael S. Kimmel examines our basic beliefs about gender, arguing that men and women are more alike than we have ever imagined. Kimmel begins his discussion by observing that all cultures share the notion that men and women are different, and that the logical extension of this assumption is that gender differences cause the obvious inequalities between the sexes. In fact, he asserts that the reverse is true--gender inequality causes the differences between men and women. Gender is not simply a quality inherent in each individual--it is deeply embedded in society's fundamental institutions: the family, school, and the workplace. The issues surrounding gender are complex, and in order to clarify them, the author has included a review of the existing literature in related disciplines such as biology, anthropology, psychology and sociology. Finally, with an eye towards the future, Kimmel offers readers a glimpse at gender relations in the next millennium. Well-written, well-reasoned and authoritative, The Gendered Society provides a thorough overview of the current thinking about gender while persuasively arguing that it is time to reevaluate what we thought we knew about men and women.

Tomboy by Liz Prince

Call Number: 741.597 P955t 2014

ISBN: 1936976552

Publication Date: 2014

Growing up, Liz Prince wasn't a girly girl, dressing in pink tutus or playing Pretty Pretty princess like the other girls in her neighborhood. But she wasn't exactly one of the guys either, as she quickly learned when her Little League baseball coach exiled her to the outfield instead of letting her take the pitcher's mound. Liz was somewhere in the middle, and Tomboy is the story of her struggle to find the place where she belonged.  Tomboy is a graphic novel about refusing gender boundaries, yet unwittingly embracing gender stereotypes at the same time, and realizing later in life that you can be just as much of a girl in jeans and a T-shirt as you can in a pink tutu. A memoir told anecdotally, Tomboy follows author and zine artist Liz Prince through her early childhood into adulthood and explores her ever-evolving struggles and wishes regarding what it means to "be a girl."  From staunchly refuting anything she perceived as being "girly" to the point of misogyny, to discovering through the punk community that your identity is whatever you make of it, regardless of your gender, Tomboy is as much humorous and honest as it is at points uncomfortable and heartbreaking.

Month 5 of these mini lessons is all about Trans*! 

Vocabulary! 

There are quite a few terms to go over this month, because the Trans* community is so diverse and consists of so many different components. 

Gender Identity: A sense of one’s self as trans*, genderqueer, woman, man, or some other identity, which may or may not correspond with the sex and gender one is assigned at birth.

Trans*: The asterisk placed after Trans has been used in many different ways. Some folks think of it as being more inclusive towards gender non-conforming and non-binary folks. But others have offered critique that it feels exclusionary towards GNC and non-binary folks for enforcing a binary expectation to “fill in the blank" for trans man or trans woman.  There have also been discussions/critique regarding the origin of the asterisk.

Transgender: Adjective used most often as an umbrella term, and frequently abbreviated to “trans.” This adjective describes a wide range of identities and experiences of people whose gender identity and/or expression differs from conventional expectations based on their assigned sex at birth. Not all trans people undergo medical transition (surgery or hormones).  Some commonly held definitions:

1. Someone whose determination of their sex and/or gender is not universally considered valid; someone whose behavior or expression does not “match” their assigned sex according to society.

2. A gender outside of the man/woman binary.

3. Having no gender or multiple genders.

Trans man: A person may choose to identify this way to capture their gender identity as well as their lived experience as a transgender person.  Some trans men may also use the term FTM or F2M to describe their identity.

Trans woman: A person may choose to identify this way to capture their gender identity as well as their lived experience as a transgender person.  Some transwomen may also use MTF or M2F to describe their identity.

Transition: An individualized process by which transsexual and transgender people “switch” from one gender presentation to another. There are three general aspects to transitioning: social (i.e. name, pronouns, interactions, etc.), medical (i.e. hormones, surgery, etc.), and legal (i.e. gender marker and name change, etc.). A trans* individual may transition in any combination, or none, of these aspects.

Transsexual (TS): A person who lives full-time in a gender different than their assigned birth sex and gender.  Many pursue hormones and/or surgery. Sometimes used to specifically refer to trans people pursuing gender or sex confirmation.

Be sure to look into these books for more information and check back next month for answers to all things gender! 

A Murder over a Girl by Ken Corbett

Call Number: 364.152 C789m 2016

ISBN: 0805099204

Publication Date: 2016

A psychologist's gripping, troubling, and moving exploration of the brutal murder of a possibly transgender middle school student by an eighth grade classmate On Feb. 12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who had recently begun to call himself "Leticia" and wear makeup and jewelry to school. Profoundly shaken by the news, and unsettled by media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and of race integral to the case, psychologist Ken Corbett traveled to LA to attend the trial. As visions of victim and perpetrator were woven and unwoven in the theater of the courtroom, a haunting picture emerged not only of the two young teenagers, but also of spectators altered by an atrocity and of a community that had unwittingly gestated a murder. Drawing on firsthand observations, extensive interviews and research, as well as on his decades of academic work on gender and sexuality, Corbett holds each murky facet of this case up to the light, exploring the fault lines of memory and the lacunae of uncertainty behind facts. Deeply compassionate, and brimming with wit and acute insight, A Murder Over a Girl is a riveting and stranger-than-fiction drama of the human psyche.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Call Number: F299s

ISBN: 156341029X

Publication Date: 1993

Jess, a working-class woman living as a man, survives a period of homelessness, tries to unionize fellow workers, worries about being found out, and searches for community while undergoing a secret transsexual operation.

 

 

Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green

Call Number: E-Book

ISBN: 1423728912

Publication Date: 2004

Written by a leading activist in the transgender movement, "Becoming a Visible Man" is an artful and compelling inquiry into the politics of gender. Jamison Green combines candid autobiography with informed analysis to offer unique insight into the multiple challenges of the female-to-male transsexual experience, ranging from encounters with prejudice and strained relationships with family to the development of an FTM community and the realities of surgical sex reassignment. For more than a decade, Green has provided educational programs on gender-variance issues for corporations, law-enforcement agencies, social-science conferences and classes, continuing legal education, religious education, and medical venues. His comprehensive knowledge of the processes and problems encountered by transgendered and transsexual people--as well as his legal advocacy work to help ensure that gender-variant people have access to the same rights and opportunities as others--enable him to explain the issues as no transsexual author has previously done. Brimming with frank and often poignant recollections of Green's own experiences--including his childhood struggles with identity and his years as a lesbian parent prior to his sex-reassignment surgery--the book examines transsexualism as a human condition, and sex reassignment as one of the choices that some people feel compelled to make in order to manage their gender variance. Relating the FTM psyche and experience to the social and political forces at work in American society, "Becoming a Visible Man" also speaks consciously of universal principles that concern us all, particularly the need to live one's life honestly, openly, and passionately.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Call Number: E87m 2002

ISBN: 0374199698

Publication Date: 2002

A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides - the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl. In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly real: a hermaphrodite.Spanning eight decades - and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. It marks the fulfillment of a huge talent, named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare; Elizabeth Story Donno (Editor); Penny Gay (Introduction by)

Call Number: 822.33 T7d 2017

ISBN: 1107126274

Publication Date: 2017

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This third edition of Twelfth Night retains the text edited and annotated by Elizabeth Story Donno for the first edition of 1985, and features an updated introduction by Penny Gay, which focuses on recent scholarship and performance history. Building on her Introduction to the second edition, Gay stresses the play's theatricality, its elaborate linguistic games and its complex use of Ovidian myths. She analyses the delicate balance Shakespeare strikes in Twelfth Night between romance and realism, and explores representations of gender, sexuality and identity in the text. A selection of new photographs completes the edition.

Month 4 of the mini-lesson series about Queer Theory! 

This month is focused on the third letter of the common acronym: LGBTQIA+, as well as a P that rarely makes it into the shortened version. That is to say, we will be looking at bi and pan, both as sexuality and gender.

Vocabulary!

Bisexual: A person whose primary sexual and affectional orientation is toward people of the same and other genders, or towards people regardless of their gender.

Bigender: Having two genders, exhibiting cultural characteristics of masculine and feminine roles

Pansexual, Omnisexual: Terms used to describe people who have romantic, sexual or affectional desire for people of all genders and sexes.  

Questioning: The process of exploring one’s own gender identity, gender expression, and/or sexual orientation. Some people may also use this term to name their identity within the LGBTQIA community.

Have a look at these books to discover more, and check back next month for all things trans*!

Baldwin by James Baldwin; Darryl Pinckney (Editor)

Call Number: B181La 2015

ISBN: 1598534548

Publication Date: 2015

James Baldwin established himself as the indispensable voice of the Civil Rights era, a figure whose prophetic exploration of the racial and sexual fissures in American society raised the consciousness of American readers. This new Library of America volume see's three of Baldwin's later novels collected for the first time; Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968) If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979).

 

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Call Number: W913o 1973

ISBN: 015670160X

Publication Date: 1973

In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young nobleman at the beginning of the story and a modern woman three centuries later. A poetic masterpiece of the first rank (Rebecca West).

 

Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman

Call Number: A181c 2007

ISBN: 0374299218

Publication Date: 2007

Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination, and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.   The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk Staff

Call Number: S7945f

ISBN: 055337222X

Publication Date: 1993

The best and worst of our possible futures are poised to clash in twenty-first-century California, and the outcome rests on the wisdom and courage of one clan caught in the conflict. Ninety-eight-year-old Maya has helped shape the ecumenical culture of the North by reviving and re-creating an earth-based spiritual tradition. Madrone, the granddaughter of Maya's longtime lovers, is a healer trying to thwart recurring epidemics that she suspects are biological warfare waged by the tyrannical South. Bird, Maya's grandson, returns from ten years in a Southern prison with warnings of the impending invasion and an urgent request for help from the resistance in the hills." "When Madrone travels south to aid the rebels and search for a cure to the deadly viruses, she finds herself fighting for her own life alongside battle-weary guerrillas and beautiful pirates. Meanwhile, in the North debates rage about how to repel the invaders." "All war is first waged in the imagination, first conducted to limit our dreams and visions," Maya says and warns that by killing their enemies, they may themselves become transformed by violence and destroy all they have built. Bird champions her alternative vision and becomes a leader of the faction calling for nonviolent resistance. When he is captured and pressured to cooperate with the enemy, the fate of the North hangs in the balance."

 

Month 3's mini-lesson on all things queer! This month begins delving into each of the subareas of the community!

For the next few months, we will be picking apart the acronym LGBTQIA+ and exploring each letter individually. This month, we begin with the first two categories: Lesbian and Gay.

Vocabulary!

Orientation: Orientation is one’s attraction or non-attraction to other people.  An individual’s orientation can be fluid and people use a variety of labels to describe their orientation.  Some, but not all, types of attraction or orientation include: romantic, sexual, sensual, aesthetic, intellectual and platonic.

Lesbian: A woman whose primary sexual and affectional orientation is toward people of the same gender.

Gay:  A sexual and affectional orientation toward people of the same gender.

Butch: A gender expression that fits societal definitions of masculinity. Usually used by queer women and trans people, particularly by lesbians. Some consider “butch” to be its own gender identity.

Femme: Historically used in the lesbian community, it is being increasingly used by other LGBTQIA people to describe gender expressions that reclaim/claim and/or disrupt traditional constructs of femininity.

Bear Community: a part of the queer community composed of queer men similar in looks and interests, most of them big, hairy, friendly and affectionate.  The community aims to provide spaces where one feels wanted, desired, and liked.  It nourishes and values an individual’s process of making friends, of learning self-care and self-love through the unity and support of the community.  Bears, Cubs, Otters, Wolves, Chasers, Admirers and other wildlife comprise what has come to be known as the Brotherhood of Bears and/or the Bear community.

Ursula: Some lesbians, particularly butch dykes, also participate in Bear culture referring to themselves with the distinct label Ursula.

Look ino these books for more information and be sure to check back next month for everything bi- and pan-! 

Along the Journey River by Carole laFavor

Call Number: E-book

ISBN: 1452956081

Publication Date: 2017

Several sacred artifacts have gone missing from the Minnesota Red Earth Reservation and the suspect list is continuously growing. While it could be the racists from the bordering town, or a young man struggling with problems at home, or the county coroner and his cronies, the need for answers and apprehending the culprit is amplified when Jed Morriseau, the Tribal Chairman, is murdered. Investigating these mysterious occurrences because of tribal traditions and the honor of her family, Renee LaRoche works to track down the people responsible. But can she maintain her intense investigation as well as her new relationship with Samantha Salisbury, the visiting women's studies professor at the white college nearby? Renee is caught between the traditions of her tribe and efforts to help her chimook lover accept their cultural differences.

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

Call Number: W331t 2000

ISBN: 1573227889

Publication Date: 2000

"Erotic and absorbing...Written with starling power."--The New York Times Book Review   Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Call Number: W177c 1992

ISBN: 0151191549

Publication Date: 1992

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of two sisters through their correspondence.

 

 

Too Much Flesh and Jabez C Dowell by C. Dowell

Call Number: D746t

ISBN: 0811206580

Publication Date: 1977

 

 

 

A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White (Afterword by); Allan Gurganus (Introduction by)

Call Number: W5835bo 2002

ISBN: 0679642544

Publication Date: 2002

At home, in school, and on the streets, a homosexual teenager moves through comic sexual experiments, isolation, fear, and exciting expectations toward an escape from childhood and a firm sense of self.

 

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz; Mark Brabant (Cover Design by)

Call Number: S1275ar 2012

ISBN: 1442408928

Publication Date: 2012

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Saenz. Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

 

Month 2 of the monthly mini-lessons on everything Queer: The struggles ARE real.

Even after winning the right for same-sex marriage, the queer community still has countless challenges that we must face on a day-to-day basis. Whether it be from the government, society, or even other community members, these stressors are something that genuinely needs to be addressed. This month's vocabulary and books focus on some of those challenges, and how we as a society can eliminate them. 

Vocabulary!

Coming Out:  “Coming out" describes voluntarily making public one's sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It has also been broadened to include other pieces of potentially stigmatized personal information. Terms also used that correlate with this action are: "Being out" which means not concealing one's sexual orientation or gender identity, and "Outing, " a term used for making public the sexual orientation or gender identity of another who would prefer to keep this information secret.

Internalized oppression: The fear and self-hate of one’s own target/subordinate identity/ies, that occur for many individuals who have learned negative ideas about their target/subordinate identity/ies throughout childhood.  One form of internalized oppression is the acceptance of the myths and stereotypes applied to the oppressed group.

Microaggressions: Brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults about one’s marginalized identity/identities.

Oppression: exists when one social group, whether knowingly or unconsciously, exploits another social group for its own benefit.

Individual Level: beliefs or behaviors of an individual person; conscious or unconscious actions or attitudes that maintain oppression.

Institutional Level: institutions such as family, government, industry, education, and religion are shapers of, as well as shaped by, the other two levels.  The application of institutional policies and procedures in an oppressive society run by individuals or groups who advocate or collude with social oppression produces oppressive consequences.

Societal/Cultural Level: society’s cultural norms perpetuate implicit and explicit values that bind institutions and individuals; cultural guidelines, such as philosophies of life, definitions of good, normal, health, deviance, and sickness, often serve the primary function of providing individuals and institutions with the justification for social oppression.

Phobia: In terms of mental/emotional wellness - a phobia is a Marked and persistent fear “out of proportion” to the actual threat or danger the situation poses, after taking into account all the factors of the environment and situation.  Historically this term has been used to inaccurately refer to systems oppression (i.e. homophobia has been used to refer to heterosexism.) As a staff, we’ve been intentionally moving away from using words like "transphobic,” “homophobic,” and "biphobic" because (1) they inaccurately describe systems of oppression as irrational fears, and (2) for some people, phobias are a very distressing part of their lived experience and co-opting this language is disrespectful to their experiences and perpetuates ableism.  

Privilege: a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group.  The concept has roots in WEB DuBois’ work on “psychological wage” and white people’s feelings of superiority over Black people.  Peggy McIntosh wrote about privilege as a white woman and developed an inventory of unearned privileges that she experienced in daily life because of her whiteness.

Stereotype: A generalization applied to every person in a cultural group; a fixed conception of a group without allowing for individuality. When we believe our stereotypes, we tend to ignore characteristics that don’t conform to our stereotype, rationalize what we see to fit our stereotype, see those who do not conform as “exceptions,” and find ways to create the expected characteristics.

Check out these books for more information, and be sure to check back in next month!

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Call Number: 741.597 B391f 2007

ISBN: 0618871713

Publication Date: 2007

A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.

Blue Is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

Call Number: 741.594 M354b 2013

ISBN: 1551525143

Publication Date: 2013

A New York Times bestseller The live-action French film version of Blue is the Warmest Color won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Originally published in French as Le bleu est une couleur chaude, Blue is the Warmest Color is a graphic novel about growing up, falling in love, and coming out. Clementine is a junior in high school who seems average enough: she has friends, family, and the romantic attention of the boys in her school. When her openly gay best friend takes her out on the town, she wanders into a lesbian bar where she encounters Emma: a punkish, confident girl with blue hair. Their attraction is instant and electric, and Clementine finds herself in a relationship that will test her friends, parents, and her own ideas about herself and her identity. Vividly illustrated and beautifully told, Blue Is the Warmest Color is a brilliant, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel about the elusive, reckless magic of love. It is a lesbian love story that crackles with the energy of youth, rebellion, and desire.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Call Number: 824.914 L867s

ISBN: 0895941414

Publication Date: 1984

The leader of contemporary feminist theory discusses such issues as racism, self-acceptance, and mother- and womanhood.

 

 

The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo

Call Number: 791.4309 R969c

ISBN: 0060961325

Publication Date: 1987

Praised by the Chicago Tribune as "an impressive study" and written with incisive wit and searing perception--the definitive, highly acclaimed landmark work on the portrayal of homosexuality in film.

 

 

June is National Pride Month! All around the world, people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community are celebrating how far we've come as a society! There is so much more that needs to be done, but we have made a pretty great start! 

Check out these books to find out more information! 

Understanding Asexuality by Anthony F. Bogaert

Call Number: 305.8 B674u 2015

ISBN: 1442201002

Publication Date: 2015

Asexuality can be defined as an enduring lack of sexual attraction. Thus, asexual individuals do not find (and perhaps never have) others sexually appealing. Some consider asexuality as a fourth category of sexual orientation, distinct from heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality. However, there is also recent evidence that the label asexual may be used in a broader way than merely as a lack of sexual attraction. People who say they have sexual attraction to others, but indicate little or no desire for sexual activity are also self-identifying as asexual. Distinct from celibacy, which refers to sexual abstinence by choice where sexual attraction and desire may still be present, asexuality is experienced by those having a lack or sexual attraction or a lack of sexual desire. More and more, those who identify as asexual are coming out, joining up, and forging a common identity. The time is right for a better understanding of this sexual orientation, written by an expert in the field who has conducted studies on asexuality and who has provided important contributions to understanding asexuality. This timely resource will be one of the first books written on the topic for general readers, and the first to look at the historical, biological, and social aspects of asexuality. It includes firsthand accounts throughout from people who identify as asexual. The study of asexuality, as it contrasts so clearly with sexuality, also holds up a lens and reveals clues to the mystery of sexuality.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Call Number: 741.597 B391f 2007 - Location: Graphic Novels

Publication Date: 2007

A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescense, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.

Just Queer Folks by Colin R. Johnson

Call Number: 306.766 J665j 2013

ISBN: 1439909970

Publication Date: 2013

aMost studies of lesbian and gay history focus on urban environments. Yet gender and sexual diversity were anything but rare in nonmetropolitan areas in the first half of the twentieth century. "Just Queer Folks "explores the seldom-discussed history of same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity in rural and small-town America during a period when the now familiar concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality were just beginning to take shape.a Eschewing the notion that identity is always the best measure of what can be known about gender and sexuality, Colin R. Johnson argues instead for a queer historicist approach. In so doing, he uncovers a startlingly unruly rural past in which small-town eccentrics, mannish farm women, and cross-dressing Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees were often just queer folks so far as their neighbors were concerned. Written with wit and verve, " Just Queer Folks "upsets a whole host of contemporary commonplaces, including the notion that queer history is always urban history.

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Call Number: B8797ru 1988

ISBN: 0553052845

Publication Date: 1988

Rubyfruit Jungleis the first milestone novel in the extraordinary career of one of this country's most distinctive writers. Bawdy and moving, the ultimate word-of-mouth bestseller,Rubyfruit Jungleis about growing up a lesbian in America – and living happily ever after. Born a bastard, Molly Bolt is adopted by a dirt-poor Southern couple who want something better for their daughter. Molly plays doctor with the boys, beats up Leroy the tub and loses her virginity to her girlfriend in sixth grade. As she grows to realize she's different, Molly decides not to apologize for that. In no time she mesmerizes the head cheerleader of Ft. Lauderdale High and captivates a gorgeous bourbon-guzzling heiress. But the world is not tolerant. Booted out of college for moral turpitude, an unrepentant, penniless Molly takes New York by storm, sending not a few female hearts aflutter with her startling beauty, crackling wit and fierce determination to become the greatest filmmaker that ever lived. Critically acclaimed when first published,Rubyfruit Junglehas only grown in reputation as it has reached new generations of readers who respond to its feisty and inspiring heroine. From the Paperback edition.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

Call Number: J2765br 2014

ISBN: 1594633940

Publication Date: 2015

A "thrilling, ambitious . . . intense" (Los Angeles Times) novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s; In A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James combines masterful storytelling with his unrivaled skill at characterization and his meticulous eye for detail to forge a novel of dazzling ambition and scope. On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven unnamed gunmen stormed the singer's house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but rumors abounded regarding the assassins' fates. A Brief History of Seven Killings is James's fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica's history and beyond. Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters--assassins, drug dealers, journalists, and even ghosts--James brings to life the people who walked the streets of 1970s Kingston, who dominated the crack houses of 1980s New York, and who reemerged into a radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Brilliantly inventive, A Brief History of Seven Killings is an "exhilarating" (The New York Times) epic that's been called "a tour de force" (The Wall Street Journal).

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz; Mark Brabant (Cover Design by)

Call Number: S1275ar 2012

ISBN: 1442408928

Publication Date: 2012

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

Since June is Pride month, what better time to start a monthly mini-lesson on the Queer Community! This month is all about the basics, understanding what the community is, and what it means to be queer.

The Right Side of History tells the 100-year history of queer activism in a series of revealing close-ups, first-person accounts, and intimate snapshots of LGBT pioneers and radicals. This diverse cast stretches from the Edwardian period to today, including first-person accounts of the key protest that is at the heart of the 2015 movie Stonewall.

The book shows how LGBT folk have always been in the forefront of the progressive social evolution in the United States. It references heroes like Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bayard Rustin, Harvey Milk, and Edie Windsor. Equally, the book honors names that aren’t in history books, from participants in the Names Project, a national phenomenon memorializing 94,000 AIDS victims, to underground artists and writers.

Definitions of the month! 

LGBTQ: The acronym for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.” Some people also use the Q to stand for "questioning," meaning people who are figuring out their sexual orientation or gender identity. You may also see LGBT+, LGBT*, LGBTx, or LGBTQIA. I stands for intersex and A for asexual/aromantic/agender. The "A" has also been used by some to refer to "ally." We will explore these terms in later months.

Sex: The biological differences between male and female.

Gender: The societal constructions we assign to male and female. When you hear someone say "gender stereotypes," they're referring to the ways we expect men/boys and women/girls to act and behave.

Queer: Originally used as a pejorative slur, queer has now become an umbrella term to describe the myriad ways people reject binary categories of gender and sexual orientation to express who they are. People who identify as queer embrace identities and sexual orientations outside of mainstream heterosexual and gender norms.

Check out these listings for more!

The Right Side of History by Adrian Brooks; Jonathan Katz (Foreword by)

Call Number: 323.326 B873r 2015

ISBN: 1627781234

Publication Date: 2015

The Right Side of History tells the 100-year history of queer activism in a series of revealing close-ups, first-person accounts, and intimate snapshots of LGBT pioneers and radicals.

Radical Love by Patrick S. Cheng

Call Number: 230.086 C518r 2011

ISBN: 1596271329

Publication Date: 2011

Cheng provides a historical survey of how queer theology has developed from the 1950s to today and then explicates the themes of queer theology using the ecumenical creeds as a general framework.

 

Queer (In)Justice by Andrea Ritchie; Joey Mogul; Kay Whitlock

Call Number: 342.73 M696q 2011

ISBN: 0807051160

Publication Date: 2011

A groundbreaking work that turns a "queer eye" on the criminal legal system, and winner of the 2011 PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Drawing on years of research, activism, and legal advocacy, Queer (In)Justice is a searing examination of queer experiences--as "suspects," defendants, prisoners, and survivors of crime. The authors unpack queer criminal archetypes--like "gleeful gay killers," "lethal lesbians," "disease spreaders," and "deceptive gender benders"--to illustrate the punishment of queer expression, regardless of whether a crime was ever committed.

This month's display is dedicated to the struggle to achieve equality for women all over the nation:

President Jimmy Carter’s Message to the nation designating March 2-8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week:

“From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.

As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, “Women’s History is Women’s Right.” – It is an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision.”

I ask my fellow Americans to recognize this heritage with appropriate activities during National Women’s History Week, March 2-8, 1980.

I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality – – Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul.

Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people.

This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that “Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Check out some materials we have on hand:

U. S. History As Women's History by Linda K. Kerber (Editor); Alice Kessler-Harris (Editor); Kathryn Kish Sklar (Editor)

Call Number: 305.409 U58

Publication Date: 1995

This outstanding collection of fifteen original essays represents innovative work by some of the most influential scholars in the field of women's history. Covering a broad sweep of history from colonial to contemporary times and ranging over the fields of legal, social, political, and cultural history, this book, according to its editors, 'intrudes into regions of the American historical narrative from which women have been excluded or in which gender relations were not thought to play a part.' State formation, power, and knowledge have not traditionally been understood as the subjects of women's history, but they are the themes that permeate this book. Individually and together, the essays explore how gender serves to legitimize particular constructions of power and knowledge and to meld these into accepted practice and state policy. They show how the field of women's history has moved from the discovery of women to an evaluation of social processes and institutions. 

 

Unequal Sisters by Vicki L. Ruiz (Editor)

Call Number: 305.488 U566 2008

Publication Date: 2007

Unequal Sistershas become a beloved and classic reader in American Women's History. It provides an unparalleled resource for understanding women's history in the United States today. When it was first published in 1990, it revolutionized the field with its broad multicultural approach, and continued, through its next two editions, to emphasize feminist perspectives on race, ethnicity, region, and sexuality. This classic work is in its fourth edition, and has incorporated the feedback of end-users in the field, to make it the most user-friendly version to date.

 

Feminism Unfinished by Dorothy Sue Cobble; Linda Gordon; Astrid Henry

Call Number: 305.4209 C654f 2014

Publication Date: 2014

Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women's movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that dramatically rewrites a century of American women's history. Also challenging the contemporary "lean-in," trickle-down feminist philosophy and asserting that women's histories all too often depoliticize politics, labor issues, and divergent economic circumstances, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry demonstrate that the post-Suffrage women's movement focused on exploitation of women in the workplace as well as on inherent sexual rights. The authors carefully revise our "wave" vision of feminism, which previously suggested that there were clear breaks and sharp divisions within these media-driven "waves." Showing how history books have obscured the notable activism by working-class and minority women in the past, Feminism Unfinished provides a much-needed corrective.

 

Women's Activism by Francisca De Haan (Editor); Margaret Allen (Editor); June Purvis (Editor); Krassimira Dasklova (Editor)

Call Number: 305.4209 W872555 2013

Publication Date: 2013

Women's Activismbrings together twelve innovative contributions from feminist historians from around the world to look at how women have always found ways to challenge or fight inequalities and hierarchies as individuals, in international women's organizations, as political leaders, and in global forums such as the United Nations. The book is divided into three parts. Part one, brings together four essays about organized women's activism across borders. The chapters in part two focus on the variety of women's activism and explore women's activism in different national and political contexts. And part three explores the changing relationships and inequalities among women. This book addresses women's internationalism and struggle for their rights in the international arena; it deals with racism and colonialism in Australia, India and Europe; women's movements and political activism in South Africa, Eastern Bengal (Bangladesh), the United Kingdom, Japan and France. Essential reading for anyone interested in women's history and the history of activism more generally.

 

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

Call Number: 741.597 L598s 2015

Publication Date: 2015

Wonder Woman, created in 1941, on the brink of World War II, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, she has lasted the longest and commanded the most vast and wildly passionate following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike others, she also has a secret history.  In Jill Lepore's riveting work of historical detection, Wonder Woman's story provides the missing link in the history of the struggle for women's rights--a chain of events that begins with the women's suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later.  This edition includes a new afterword with fresh revelations based on never before seen letters and photographs from the Marston family's papers.

 

Chronology of Women Worldwide by Lynne Brakeman

Call Number: 305.409 C557 1997 - Reference Area

Publication Date: 1996

This work focuses on the key international happenings throughout the ages, with particular emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. It includes women's achievements in specific areas such as the arts, transportation and science. Brief biographies of important individuals are also included.

 

Attend Marianne Williamson's convocation on

March 30, 2017, 3:00pm

Phelps-Stokes Auditorium

If you enjoyed Marianne Williamson's presentation, then you'll love her books that we have available for check-out, at the display near the cafe!

The Healing the Soul of America by Marianne Williamson; Mary A. Naples (Editor)

Call Number: 973 W731h 2000

Publication Date: 1997

A lecturer shares the principles she believes are needed to reunite the country, emphasizing a return to the spiritual roots that underlie the founding of America, including the power of nonviolence and the power of community. 

 

 

The Gift of Change by Marianne Williamson

Call Number: 158.1 W731g 2004

Publication Date: 2004

A spiritual meditation on the role of change in everyday life explores how personal difficulties often bring about wisdom, analyzes humanity's typical resistance to change, and outlines principles for navigating through major changes using such techniques as letting go, grieving, and managing fear.

 

Welcome to the Wisdom of the World and Its Meaning for You by Joan Chittister

Call Number: 200 C543w 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Certain questions are common to all of us as human beings. Why was I born? What?'s important in life? How do I know the right thing to do? What does it mean to "make a difference"? What?'s wrong with me ? why can't I change? Such questions are so deeply human that they transcend time and place, religions and cultures. In this inviting book Joan Chittister presents the insights of others from different cultures throughout history who have grappled with the same kinds of life questions that plague us here and now. Through stories and wisdom literature from major religious traditions ? Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam ? Chittister highlights practical, universal truths and deftly shows how each spiritual tradition brings a special gift to the art of living a meaningful, spiritually aware life. A rich exploration of spirituality, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World addresses some of our most challenging issues ? ambition, security, romance, abandonment, failure, and more ? acknowledging the truth we can find in the wisdom of our human past and the connections we can make through our differences. This is a book for anyone who wants to grow spiritually and to become more fully human.

Hutchins Library is hosting an art exhibit of the Feminist Artists of Kentucky titled "Engaging communities to impact social justice." This art exhibit celebrates the Women's History Month and features pieces by 6 artists: Trish Ayers, Pat Cheshire Jennings, Jackie Pullum, Mary Ann Shupe, Patricia Watkins, and Valeria Watkins, as well as a guest artist Lynn Marrapodi. 

The exhibit is on display in the library's main floor. The exhibit may be viewed during library regular hours. It is free and open to the public.

The artists provided the following artist statement for the exhibit:

"We are six working artists who combine our efforts and talents to expand our creativity and create exhibitions that challenge the social norms. We are delighted to bring this exhibit to the Berea College Theatre Laboratory during its current production of plays written by Kentucky women playwrights. We support gender parity and equality in the art world, including theatre. 

If you wish to purchase our art, you may call 859-302-3709 and we will explain the details of your transaction and answer any other questions you may have. 

Thank you for coming and we hope you enjoy our exhibition."

Some artists' personal statements:

Valeria Watkins: "Women's History Month offers us all an opportunity to honor the work of women. It is a pure joy to work with my fellow artists  as Feminist Artists of Kentucky.."

Patricia Watkins: "My work as a feminist artist is most often inspired by women, their roles in our culture, and their legacies. Being in my seventh decade, I also am influenced by the body of work that I hope to leave behind..."

Hutchins Library would like to let patrons know that the library now offers Hein Online as part of its online electronic resources. The database can be described  as follows:

"HeinOnline is the world’s largest fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of both U.S. statutory materials and more than 2,300 scholarly journals, all of the world’s constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, and access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase."

Some of the materials available on Hein Online include, but are not limited to:

• Case law
• Law Journals
• Government documents like the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), U.S. Federal Agencies documents, decisions, and appeals, and U.S. Treaties and Agreements.
• Various legal history collections such  as religion and the law.

You can access Hein Online via the library website. It is listed under "Electronic Resources." This database can be useful for students working on topics such as legal issues, political science, history, women's studies, and other subjects.

Please note this is a subscription-based resource. If you are off campus, you will need to authenticate to gain access by providing your Berea College credentials (username and password).

Check out our convocation display at Hutchins Library!

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Fast Forward by Melanne Verveer; Kim K. Azzarelli; Hillary Rodham Clinton (Foreword by)

Call Number: 650.108 V489f 2015

Publication Date: 2015-10-06

Learn how some of the world''s most inspiring women are using their growing economic power to create success and meaning in their lives while building a better world. . . and how you can too. Important conversations about leaning in, work/life balance and empowering women and girls around the world have energized a generation of women. Fast Forward, by two women leaders whose experience spans corporate America, public service, and global diplomacy, takes the next step. Through interviews with a network of more than seventy trailblazing women, Fast Forward shows women how to accelerate their growing economic power and combine it with purpose to find both success and meaning in their lives. 

Black Women's Christian Activism by Betty Livingston Adams

Call Number: 277.493 A211b 2016

Publication Date: 2016-02-16

When a domestic servant named Violet Johnson moved to the affluent white suburb of Summit, New Jersey in 1897, she became one of just barely a hundred black residents in the town of six thousand. In this avowedly liberal Protestant community, the very definition of “the suburbs” depended on observance of unmarked and fluctuating race and class barriers. But Johnson did not intend to accept the status quo. Establishing a Baptist church a year later, a seemingly moderate act that would have implications far beyond weekly worship, Johnson challenged assumptions of gender and race, advocating for a politics of civic righteousness that would grant African Americans an equal place in a Christian nation. Johnson’s story is powerful, but she was just one among the many working-class activists integral to the budding days of the civil rights movement.  

Women and Elective Office by Sue Thomas (Editor); Clyde Wilcox (Editor)

Call Number: 320.082 W8715

Publication Date: 1998-02-05

This text intends to pick up where other books on women candidates or officeholders leave off. It explores the history of women candidates and officeholders in the USA, synthesizing previous research on these subjects, and offers data and analysis on the current situation of women in the political elite. The book offers students a comprehensive look at where women stand and what has brought them to this point.

 

Women's Studies in Transition by Kate Conway-Turner (Editor); Suzanne Cherrin (Editor); Jessica Schiffman (Editor); Kathleen Doherty Turkel (Editor)

Call Number: 305.407 W8716

Publication Date: 1998-09-01

The central theme of this book focuses on the interdisciplinary linkages within contemporary women's studies scholarship. Authors delineate the shifts in theory and methodology that have occurred as women's studies scholars have worked across disciplines. Scholars grapple with the reality of addressing issues within the areas of medicine, science/math, and family and public policy.