New Books November 2023

It’s been an eclectic mix of books this month – but then isn’t it always with the breadth of literature our readers study! There’s no common theme this month, unlike November, we have simply chosen some of our recent fiction additions to highlight.

As we enter winter vacation, our lending policies have changed slightly. From November 27th, all loanable books will be due back on January 16th – so you’ll have plenty of time to cosy up with a book during the festive period. You can find more information in this blog post, but if you have any further questions do feel free to send us an email or chat to us in-person at the Enquiries Desk.

With all that being said, onto the books!


Mourning Dove, Cogewea, The Half Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range (1981)

You may notice that one of our recent displays at the EFL was on Native American literature (you can find pictures on our social media here). In that vein, Cogewea is aFront cover of 'Cogewea: The Half-Bloof' featuring a painting of an Indigenous woman looking over her shoulder on a traditional quilted background great addition to the EFL’s collections, not only as one of the first fiction novels written by an Indigenous woman but in the themes it covers as well. Mourning Dove (Okanogan) takes on the difficult task of writing a Western, a genre notorious for its disparaging depictions of Indigenous people – not to mention women. However, she manages this task magnificently, marrying together the Western genre with the internal struggle that Cogewea grapples with as someone who is caught between both Indigenous and White blood. Cogewea did not have an easy to path to publication: it was finished by Mourning Dove in 1912 but not published until 1927 (and only when her publisher was threatened with legal action). Even once published she was accused of not being the author! As November is Native American Heritage Month, I would challenge anyone to pick up a book written by an Indigenous author; if Cogewea intrigues you, you might also enjoy other Indigenous writing from the early 20th century such as Zitkála-Šá’s essays, or Waterlily by Ella Deloria.

Rebecca Stott, Dark Earth (2022)

Dark Earth covers a lightly trod period of historical fiction aimed at women, known to many as the Dark Ages (although I hasten to add that no medievalist would ever call itFront cover of 'Dark Earth' featuring an illustration of two women back to back, one holding a sword and the other flowers. this!). Set in approximately 500CE, post the Roman occupation of Britain, we follow two sisters – Blue and Isla – as they navigate being a woman in a world in which there’s little room for them; Stott depicting their respective gifts of herbalism and smithing as unacceptable for women in Anglo-Saxon society. After some serious personal and political upheaval (we won’t expand on that lest we get into spoiler territory), the sisters flee to the ruins of Londinium in order to survive the wrath of the merciless Seax Lord, Osric, and his son. However, they will have to leave the comfort of their found community in Londinium to save them. If you enjoy feministic retellings of history such as The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, you will likely enjoy this. However, if you want something to evoke the ghostly feeling of the ruins of Londinium, then perhaps you might be interested The Ruin, an elegy in the Exeter Book from 700-800CE describing the crumbling remains of a once great ancient city.

David Bradley, The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel (1981)

John Washington, our protagonist, is a black man and professor of history – not unlike the author himself. He is unwillingly thrown into uncovering the true circumstances ofFront cover of 'The Chaneysville Incident', featuring a papercut style illustration of a white candle on a background of orange and red his father’s death, using his training as a historian to piece together the clues while uncovering deeper, darker secrets along the way. Oscillating between the past and Washington’s present, we witness the multigenerational trauma of racism and slavery and how it affects how Washington perceives himself and his family history. It’s gripping from the very first page, a true must-read for anyone interested in the ongoing and complex history of racism in the United States, and how cultural identities are forged in the face this. If you enjoy Toni Morrison’s works, such as Song of Solomon, or Let us Descend by Jesmyn Ward, this might be the book for you.

Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream (2014)

Translated from Spanish, a young woman lies dying in a rural Argentinian hospital. Her daughter is nowhere to be seen – instead a young boy named David is at her side, andThe front cover of 'Fever Dream', featuring an illustration of a horse where only the head is visible, covered up by the title and authors name in distorted text. she can’t shake the lingering feeling that she needs to remember what happened to her and her daughter. Some of the main themes of Fever Dream are parental anxiety, the effects of pesticides and industrial-scale farming, and the transmutation of the soul. If this sounds like a bizarre mixture of themes, perhaps even a fever dream, that would be because it is – and that suits the novel just fine. Told in dialogue, the book’s sparse prose is disorienting at times, adding to the relentless tension creeping in the background of the novel. It’s not quite a midwinter ghost story, but if you’re looking for something to leave you unsettled and looking over your shoulder this December, then this might be the book for you. Great for fans of The Grip of It by Jac Jemc or Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (which was quite literally written in a fevered state!)

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (2015)

Station Eleven is a strange read in a post-Covid world, somewhat predicting the lead-up to lockdown in its opening chapters with hospital beds overflowing and conflictingFront cover of 'Station Eleven' featuring an illustration of a deer in silhouette, in a frame of plantlife with deserted buildings in the background reports on statistics. Luckily for us, however, we have fared slightly better than those in the book in which most of humanity has been wiped out by the Georgia Flu (loosely based on Swine Flu). St. John Mandel expertly weaves together the stories of a diverse mix of people across the decades following the pandemic, looking at the bonds of community that can form in the wake of disaster (because “survival is insufficient”) and how these communities can become twisted. A great read if you’re a fan of works like Severence by Ling Ma, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

(Nb. There are depictions of sexual violence so please proceed with care!)

 

Service Update – Winter Vacation 23/24

Introduction

Congratulations on finishing the first term of the academic year! The vacation is upon us, and it’s once again a good time for hot drinks, hunkering down, and hibernating (or, y’know, hiding at home/in a quiet corner of the library and reading).

For those of you who are new to Oxford this year, you may notice a couple of seasonal changes in library operations throughout the year. We’ll always outline them in these service updates. So kick back, get cosy, and happy reading.

Opening Hours

We’re changing back to our vacation opening hours for the duration of the winter vacation. From Monday 4th December – Friday 12th January, the English Faculty Library will be open 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday – except for the closed period (see below).

Closure Period

The English Faculty Library will be closed from Friday 22nd December – Monday 1st January (inclusive).

During this time, our phones and email inbox will not be monitored. You’re welcome to leave us email queries which we will endeavour to respond to promptly upon reopening on Tuesday 2nd January. No loans will be due for return during this period.

Vacation Loans

Books that are borrowed on or after Monday 27th November are automatically on loan for the whole vacation. These will all be due for return on Tuesday 16th January (excepting members whose cards expire before this date). Aside from this, all normal loan policies apply.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or need help with anything, our library staff will always be available during opening hours to speak with you.

You can also contact us via:

  • Telephone: 01865 271050
  • Email: efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
  • Twitter: @EFLOxford

All our details can be found on the English Faculty Library webpage.

Final Words

We know you’re all busy, but we do hope you find some time to relax a little over the holidays. Take care of yourselves – we look forward to seeing you again in the new year!

Referencing Resources

A title 'Referencing Resources' displayed over a photograph of a hand skimming through an open book.Hello, hard workers! We hope Michaelmas term is treating you well. Whether you’re a first year undergraduate or a more experienced academic, referencing can be a complex thing. We thought now would be a good time to put together a blog of helpful library resources on referencing for you.

Please note: This is not intended to be a comprehensive guide on how to reference. Rather, we want to help you to access resources that can provide more thorough guidance. If in doubt, we always recommend contacting your faculty for advice.

Some Advice for English Students

There is no mandatory referencing system from the faculty, though individual tutors may have their own requirements. The most important things are consistency, clarity, and common sense (see the English Language and Literature LibGuide to read this explained in more detail). However, pre-written faculty support is provided for MHRA  – so if you’re able to be flexible about what system you use, you may find this easiest as a starting point.

Whatever style you chose to use, we’ve laid out some resources below that may help you in your studies.

Course Handbooks

Your first port of call for referencing advice should always be your course handbook. For English students of all different courses and year groups, these can be found in the Oxford English Student Space. Your handbook will explain to you what referencing systems you can or should use for your faculty, and go into further detail on some of the most frequently used types of resources. Some handbooks even include guidance for subject specific resource referencing (such as for the Oxford English Dictionary or Text Analysis Tools for English Language and Literature students).

Referencing LibGuides

The English Faculty Library has put together a Referencing tab in our LibGuide which is full of detailed advice and helpful tips for English students. It explains some of the most commonly used referencing systems, bibliographies, and reference creation and management tools. This page is tailored to support members of the English Faculty, but similar pages are available for other subjects too. You can access a comprehensive referencing LibGuide on Managing your References.

Cite Them Right

Cite Them Right is a useful database to which the University of Oxford provides access for its members. You’ll need to log-in to SOLO with your SSO before accessing the website if you’re away from the university network. CTR explains how to create references for loads of different materials and in 8 different referencing systems. You also get the option to input the information to create a reference which you can copy and paste into your bibliography.

This offers usefully detailed information on resources like manuscripts, historical texts, reprints, and facsimiles, which can be particularly useful to scholars within the English faculty.

Citation Tools and Software

A screenshot from SOLO showing the various citation tools available

There are lots of citation tools and pieces of software that the university offers access to which may be of benefit to you. A couple of examples include

  • SOLO Citations: SOLO will automatically generate text citations in 5 different referencing styles directly from the item SOLO record, which can be copied and pasted into your bibliography.
  • Reference ManagersThe University of Oxford offers its members free use of external reference managers such as RefWorks, EndNote, and also supports the always freely-available Mendeley. You can attend Bodleian iSkills workshops (when available) to teach you how to use these reference managers. Alternatively, you can access training materials at any time. If you find yourself struggling, the Bodleian even have an email address you can contact for help with reference management: reference-management@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Useful Books

If you prefer manually creating citations, the following helpful titles are available through the library service.

  • Neville, C. (2016) The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism. Third edition. London: Open University Press – Available in ebook and in print.
  • Pears, R., Shields, G. (2019) Cite them right: the essential referencing guide. Red Globe Press – Available in ebook and in print.
  • Gibaldi, J. (2008) MLA style manual and guide to scholarly publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America. – Available in print.

We hope that these resources will be useful to you in your studies! Remember, if you’re every really stuck, you can always ask for help! The faculty and the library are always here if you need us.

Until then – happy reading!

New Books October 2023

A belated (but no less warm) welcome to all our new and returning readers this term! We have had a huge range of new arrivals in the last month or two, from young adult fiction to a multitude of medieval offerings – and even a book about mermaids. However, in the wake of Black History Month coming to an end, we have picked out a range of books from Black authors that have arrived at the EFL in October. It should be noted that this is simply a jumping-off point for literature written by Black authors, and that you can find much more in the library at large – see our LibraryThing feed for more. We are also open to requests, which you can email to us until our request form opens up again – usually it is located here.


Claude Mckay, Romance in Marseille (2020)

Published posthumously nearly 90 years after it was initially written, we are introduced to Lafala. He is a West-African sailor who loses both of his lower-legs to frost-bite after being locked in a freezing room aboard the trans-Atlantic freighter he had been stowing away in. Set during the Jazz Age, we follow Lafala’s life post-amputation, delving into themes of disability, queerness, and the legacy of slavery. Romance in Marseille was considered too transgressive for its time which is why it took so long to be published, even after the death of McKay. I would, however, like to warn readers that there are some anti-Semitic instances in the novel and would suggest proceeding with care.


Eds. Mojisola Adebayo, Lynette Goddard, Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners: An Anthology of Afriquia Theatre (2023)

Next we have more queer literature by Black British authors in the form of a collection of seven plays. These radical plays explore a whole range of LGBTQ+ experiences in Black British queer theatre, taking the reader from the 1980s through to the present day. Sandwiched in-between are conversations between Black LGBTQ+ artists, who discuss how the plays featured have influenced their work, and consider how they may affect the future as well. Not to worry if you are a newcomer to the genre, however, as this edition begins with a thorough introduction which gives a great amount of socio-political context so you can get the most from each play.


Eds. Paul Field et al. Here to Stay, Here to Fight: A Race Today Anthology (2019)

Race Today was a monthly British periodical that ran between 1969-1988, considered to be the leading voice for Black politics in the UK at the time. In its contributions it drew together giants such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and many more. Well-read during its run, the publication gave unique insight into how socio-political factors such as class, race, and gender affected everything nationally and internationally. At the time of publication of the anthology, it was difficult to access Race Today, and so it was ground-breaking for anything to come of it. However, this year the entire archives were published here on archive.org. The anthology is a great starting point, however, we highly encourage you to dip into the full publication as well!


Ed. Harvey Young The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre 2nd Edition (2023)

Hot off the press and newly updated from its 2012 predecessor, we have the latest and most comprehensive overview of African American theatre to date. Covering from the 1800s to the present day, this new edition includes new chapters exploring how recent political movements (such as Black Lives Matter) have affected the theatre space, and how queer identity and African American theatre intersect. This would be a great accompaniment to Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners: An Anthology of Afriquia Theatre to compare how performance art by Black creators has developed and diverged across the pond versus in Britain!


Jane Rhodes, Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century (2023)

An (unfortunately) lesser known figure in North American history, Mary Ann Shadd Cary was an eminent figure in the women’s suffrage movement in America. She was the first Black North American woman to edit and publish her own newspaper (The Provincial Freeman), as well as one of the first women at Howard University to received a degree in law, and an activist, setting up a desegregated school in Canada 100 years before desegregation happened in America. If she sounds like a powerhouse, it’s because she is – and we could all do with learning a little more about her.

 

Service Update: Michaelmas Term 2023

Introduction

Grab your Keep Cup coffees, consult your reading lists, and water your carnations – it’s term-time and the library is here to help! We’re delighted to see the bustle back in the EFL, and our fully-stocked Library team is ready at hand to assist you in all your reading needs. To get your academic year off on the right foot, we’ve compiled the library updates into a quick read for your convenience.

Bodleian Inductions

For undergraduates who are new to the library service, the Bodleian Libraries are running multiple online induction sessions to help you get to grips with accessing library resources. These sessions will cover topics such as:

  • The structure of the Bodleian Libraries
  • How to find the books you need
  • How to use library WiFi, Computers, and Printing
  • Where to get help if you need it

Multiple sessions will be offered through the day from Wednesday 4th October to Friday 6th October. New undergraduate students should already have been sent a link directly, but if you’ve not received it, feel free to contact us at efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

English Faculty Library Tours

In addition to the central inductions, we’re also offering in-person library tours of the English Faculty Library. Each tour will last roughly 20 minutes, and will be led by a member of EFL staff. These will be offered throughout the day from Wednesday 4th October to Friday 6th October, every 30 minutes from 10am-11:30am and from 2pm-4:30pm.

These sessions are run on a drop-in basis – no booking required!

SOLO Changes

For our returning readers, you may have noticed that our catalogue SOLO has undergone a few changes over the summer, because we’ve updated our staff-facing library management software. There are a couple of noticeable differences, like a very generous new lending allowance and the importance of reserving books!

If you’d like any help navigating these changes, some guidance has been published on navigating SOLO changes. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask any member of our library team for help.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or need help with anything, our library staff will always be available during opening hours to speak with you.

You can also contact us via:

  • Telephone: 01865 271050
  • Email: efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
  • Twitter: @EFLOxford

All our details can be found on the English Faculty Library webpage.

Final Words

With that, we hope you feel well equipped to face the new academic year. We wish you nothing but the best of luck, and we’ll always be around to help you along should you need us. Happy reading!


Stay up to date with developments at the English Faculty Library by following us on Twitter. Updates affecting the Bodleian Libraries as a whole will be published on the Service updates webpage. Any questions about library service updates can be addressed to efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Alma Updates

By Helen Scott, English and Film Studies Subject Librarian

On 24 August 2023 the Bodleian Libraries upgraded to a new library management system. Most of the changes are ‘behind the scenes’ but we have also taken the opportunity to make changes to some aspects of SOLO, and to the Bodleian Libraries’ borrowing policy. This blog post outlines the changes and will help you navigate them smoothly.

Changes to the Bodleian Libraries’ borrowing policy

Readers now have one allowance for borrowing, across all Bodleian libraries that offer lending. (Please note that college libraries have their own separate lending policies.) The Bodleian Libraries have also standardised loan periods into 4 different loan types: same day loan (3 hours), 2 day loan, 7 day loan, long loan.

Most of the English Faculty Library’s borrowable books are now 7 day loans for all readers (as previously, there are also a minority of 2 day loans). However, loans will auto-renew for up to 112 days – unless somebody else places a hold request.
Follow the link to see further details of borrowing allowances and loan categories.

Book already on loan? Place a hold request!

If you want to borrow a loanable Bodleian Libraries book (which another reader already has on loan) we recommend you place a hold request on SOLO. If you don’t place a request, the book will continue to renew automatically for the original reader.

Below are the most noticeable changes and improvements to SOLO. For a full guide to using SOLO, please see the SOLO LibGuide.

You will now need to sign into SOLO to see borrowing options

If you are not signed into SOLO you will only see whether an item is available or not, rather than whether an item can be borrowed or for how long. It is always best to sign first as you get a better service from SOLO.

Once signed in you will now see loan periods personalised to you

The terminology for loan policies has also been improved to make it clearer how long you can borrow the book for. (e.g. 7 days; 28 days etc). Please note that you can only borrow from libraries where you are a member, for example, the Bodleian Libraries and your college library.

Check for available copies before requesting from offsite

To try to help you avoid reserving and waiting for a book out on loan when there are copies already available on library shelves for you to fetch immediately, we have added this additional message to SOLO:

Message content: Find & Request - Before requesting, check for 'item in place' copies - it will be quicker for your to fetch it from the shelf than to wait for a request

A message that appears on SOLO to help you get your books faster.

New location names

If you regularly use the collections in the Bodleian Library, Weston Library, and/or the Radcliffe Camera, please note that we have improved some location labels, which will make it easier to understand at which library (or location) a book is available.

See this blogpost from the History Faculty Library for more information.

LibraryScan streamlined with Scan & Deliver service

The LibraryScan service has now been streamlined with the existing Scan & Deliver service (for items in offsite storage) into a new integrated service. If scanning is an option for any type of item you will now just see the ‘Scan & Deliver’ button.

The Scan & Deliver request form has been improved, particularly the wording on how much you can have scanned (not the whole book!) including advice that you can ask for the index or table of contents in addition to your final choice of chapter.

Requesting items from other libraries, beyond Oxford

If we do not hold an item in Oxford it is now really easy to request an item from other libraries, beyond Oxford. Simply click on ‘NEED MORE?’ from the menu at the top of the SOLO page and fill in the form.

Help & support

If you need any help, please do get in touch with library staff who will be more than happy to help you. You can contact the English Faculty Library by on efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk, or use the Live Chat service (from SOLO front page).

You can also give feedback on the changes via the ‘Feedback’ option on the banner currently at the top of the SOLO front page.

New Books Summer 2023

Even though many of our readers have now left Oxford for the vacation, the new books haven’t stopped pouring into the library. We’ve been working hard to get them all out on the library’s shelves, ready for everyone to come back for the start of Michaelmas Term!

Because we’ve had so many new books arrive at the library (nearly 150!), this month’s new book post is a little different. We’ve selected a few books which show the huge range of genres, subjects and ideas represented among the new books, from poetry and fiction to literary studies and criticism. Click here to see the new books for this month, or keep reading to see the titles featured in this month’s new book post. Alternatively, you can visit our LibraryThing page to browse all the new arrivals.

If you can’t wait until September to start reading, the library is open 9am-5pm on weekdays until Friday 11 August. The library is closed from Monday 14 to Monday 28 August, re-opening at 9am on Tuesday 29 August. Find all the details about our vacation opening hours and contact details on our website.

We hope everyone is enjoying a restful vacation, and look forward to seeing you all back in the library soon!


The Books

You may have heard that we’re making some changes to our library system this summer, and that includes some behind-the-scenes changes to SOLO. One of the consequences of this is that the permalinks to find items on SOLO will be changing.

Because of that, we’ve not provided direct links to the catalogue in this month’s new book post. Instead, keep reading to see a list of titles and whether they’re available as an e-book, which you can use to conduct your own SOLO searches. If you’re having trouble finding anything, just get in touch with the library – we’re happy to help!

Poetry

Bulley, Victoria Adukwei, Quiet (2022). Also available as an e-book.

Davidson, Peter, Arctic Elegies (2023).

Dudley, Nikki, I’d Better Let You Go (2021).

Fowler, SJ, The selected scribbling and scrawling of SJ Fowler: asemic poems (2020).

Howe, Sarah, Loop of Jade (2015).

Le Guin, Ursula K., Collected Poems (2023).

Marson, Una, Una Marson: Selected Poems (2011).

Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna, Collected Poems (2022)

Oswald, Alice, Nobody (2019)

Prynne, J. H., Kernels in Vernal Silence (2020)

 

Literature: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century

Behn, Aphra, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1987). Also available as an e-book (different edition).

Equiano, Olaudah, The Interesting Narrative (2018). Also available as an e-book (different edition).

Finberg, Melinda C. (ed.), Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists (2009).

Gay, John, Trivia: or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London (2016). Also available as an e-book (different edition).

Middleton, Thomas, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (2007). Also available as an e-book.

 

Literature: Nineteenth Century

Beckson, Karl, Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose (2005).

Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre (2022). Also available as an e-book.

Collins, Wilkie, The Moonstone (2019). Also available as an e-book.

Cox, Michael, and R. A. Gilbert (eds.), The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories (2003).

Lady Dilke, The Outcast Spirit: and Other Stories (2016).

Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2009). Also available as an e-book.

Doyle, Arthur Conan, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (2023). Also available as an e-book.

Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories (2014). Also available as an e-book.

Gaskell, Elizabeth, Mary Barton (2012). Also available as an e-book (different edition).

Kipling, Rudyard, The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales (2007).

Nesbit, E., Horror Stories (2016).

Scott, Walter, Ivanhoe (1997). Also available as an e-book.

Seacole, Mary, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (2005).

 

Literature: Twentieth Century

Buchan, John, The Thirty-Nine Steps (2009). Also available as an e-book.

Giono, Jean, The Man Who Planted Trees (2022).

Hurston, Zora Neale, Dust Tracks on a Road: A Memoir (2010).

Isherwood, Christopher, Goodbye to Berlin (2022).

Kincaid, Jamaica, At the Bottom of the River (2022).

Kincaid, Jamaica, The Autobiography of my Mother (2022).

Lehmann, Rosamund, Weather in the Streets (2018).

Marechera, Dambudzo, The House of Hunger (2022).

Morrison, Toni, Jazz (2001).

Murdoch, Iris, The Black Prince (2013).

Naipaul, V. S., The Mimic Men (2011).

Orwell, George, Decline of the English Murder (2009).

Orwell, George, Inside the Whale (2022).

Pym, Barbara, Excellent Women (2022).

Rhys, Jean, Wide Sargasso Sea (2000).

Sackville-West, Vita, Seducers in Ecuador & The Heir (2018).

Selvon, Sam, The Lonely Londoners (2021).

Sillitoe, Alan, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (2008).

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I., In the First Circle (2009).

Wilson, Angus, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (2011).

Wyndham, John, The Midwich Cuckoos (2008).

 

Literature: Twenty-first Century

Baume, Sara, Seven Steeples (2022). Also available as an e-book.

Daoud, Kamel, The Meursault Investigation (2015).

Masud, Noreen, A Flat Place (2023).

Morgan, Clare, Scar Tissue (2022).

Shamsie, Kamila, Home Fire (2018).

Spiegelman, Art, In the Shadow of No Towers (2004).

 

Literature: Travel- and Nature-Writing

Aldersey-Williams, Hugh, Tide (2017).

Bullough, Tom, Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future (2023).

Clark, Timothy, Ecocriticism on the Edge: The anthropocene as a threshold concept (2015). Also available as an e-book.

Hoare, Philip, The Sea Inside (2014).

Mabey, Richard, Turning the Boat for Home: A Life Writing about Nature (2019).

Macfarlane, Robert, The Lost Words (2017).

Mackintosh-Smith, Tim (ed.), The Travels of Ibn Battutah (2016).

Torma, Franziska (ed.), A Cultural History of the Sea in the Global Age (2023).

 

Literary Studies: Old English and Medieval Studies

Jeffs, Amy, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain (2021).

Jeffs, Amy, Wild: Tales from early medieval Britain (2022).

Karkov, Catherine E., and Nicholas Howe (eds.), Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England (2006).

Newman, Barbara, The Permeable Self: Five Medieval Relationships (2021). Also available as an e-book.

Niles, John D., God’s Exiles and English Verse: On the Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry (2018). Also available as an e-book.

Owens, Susan, Imagining England’s Past: Inspiration, Enchantment, Obsession (2023).

Robertson, Elizabeth, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience (1990).

 

Literary Studies: Politics, Philosophy and Culture

Davies, Stephen, Art and Its Messages: Meaning, Morality, and Society (1997).

Federici, Silvia, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2021).

Matthews, Steven, and Matthew Feldman (eds.), Samuel Beckett’s “Philosophy Notes” (2020).

Odell, Jenny, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (2019). Also available as an e-book.

Quashie, Kevin, Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being (2021). Also available as an e-book.

Spires, Derrick R., The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Early Print Culture in the Early United States (2019). Also available as an e-book.

Tatar, Maria, The Heroine with 1,001 Faces (2021).

 

Literary Studies: Imperialism and Colonialism

Ulka Anjaria (ed.), A History of the Indian Novel in English (2015). Also available as an e-book.

Erica R. Edwards, The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of US Empire (2021). Also available as an e-book.

Philip Steer, Settler Colonialism in Victorian Literature: Economics and Political Identity in the Networks of Empire (2020). Also available as an e-book.

Winter Jade Werner, Missionary Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century British Literature (2020).

 

Literary Studies: Shakespeare and Early Modern Theatre Studies

Bourne, Claire M. L., Shakespeare / Text: Contemporary Readings in Textual Studies, Editing and Performance (2021). Also available as an e-book.

Shakespeare, William, The First Folio of Shakespeare: The Norton Facsimile (1996).

Stern, Tiffany (ed.), Rethinking Theatrical Documents in Shakespeare’s England (2019).

Syme, Holger Schott, Theatre History, Attribution Studies, and the Question of Evidence (2023). Also available as an e-book.

Wright, Laura Jayne, Sound Effects: Hearing the Early Modern Stage (2023).

 

Literary Studies: History of Literature, Biography, and Other Topics

Bhanot, Kavita, and Jeremy Tiang (eds.), Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation (2022).

Bostridge, Mark (ed.), Lives for Sale: Biographers Tales (2005).

Caruth, Cathy (ed.), Trauma: Explorations in Memory (1995).

Puchner, Martin, The Written World: How Literature Shapes History (2018).

Sloan, John, Andrew Lang: Writer, Folklorist, Democratic Intellect (2023).

Sullivan, Hannah, The Work of Revision (2013).

New Books June 2023

Just because we’re into the Long Vacation doesn’t mean the new books have stopped pouring in here at the library! We’ve had a wide range of new arrivals this month, including fiction from around the world, studies foregrounding culture, gender and race, and a selection of poetry.

Keep reading to find out more about a few titles which caught our eye, or visit our LibraryThing page to browse all the new arrivals. Vacation loans are now in full swing, meaning any books borrowed don’t have to be returned until October, so if you’d like to pick up any of these intriguing titles you might want to act fast!


Cover image for 'Season of Crimson Blossoms' by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. The cover has a blue background, with an abstract image of a woman in profile wearing a red hijab with black circles in place of her face.Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Season of Crimson Blossoms (2017) 

In this debut novel, Ibrahim tells the story of an illicit affair between a 55-year-old widow, Binta, and 26-year-old ‘Reza’, a street gang leader. Set in the conservative, predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, the novel explores both Binta and Reza’s relationship and the world around them. With a backdrop of political violence and domestic squabbles, Ibrahim takes his time to tell the story of Binta and Reza. This slow, unhurried pacing, combined with a ‘gorgeous tapestry of language’, creates a rich narrative exploring ‘love, heartbreak, hope, desire, the human condition and our collective humanity’. 

 


Cover image for 'Culture' by Martin Puchner. The cover has a yellow background with floral motifs on it. There is a red diamond shape in the middle, split into four smaller diamonds: at the top, a line-drawing of a bust of Nefertiti; on the left and right, geometric patterns; and at the bottom, a Chinese drawing of a person.Martin Puchner, Culture: A New World History (2023) 

In a political landscape bounded by extremes, Puchner makes the case for the necessity – and long-standing fact – of cross-cultural exchange. In 15 ‘lively case studies’, he traces the movement, interpretation and re-interpretation of objects and ideas across time and space, encompassing Egypt, Jerusalem, Ethiopia, the Ottoman Empire, Tokyo, Berlin and more. With his assertion that ‘everyone is influenced by someone’, Puchner makes a powerful case for the fact that cultural transfer is to be found ‘at the heart of the story of human expression’. 

Also by Puchner at the EFL: Stage fright: modernism, anti-theaticality, and drama (2002); Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, manifestos and the avant-gardes (2006); The Written World: How Literature Shaped History (2018).  


Cover image for 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. The cover has a grey background, with a red flame shape in the centre. In the flame shape are blacked-out silhouettes of a man and a boy walking.Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2022). 

The Road is McCarthy’s tenth novel and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. It is a bleak story of a father and son’s fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. We’re never told what disaster has happened but, ‘faced with such loss’, it’s almost irrelevant. It’s a story not only of survival, but of what makes that survival meaningful; the father repeatedly reassures his son that they are ‘the good guys’. The prose is almost as sparse as the landscape they travel through, with ‘an economy of words, even an economy of thought, that parallels [the story]’. But despite the horror, a certain beauty remains: ‘In creating an exquisite nightmare, it does not add to the cruelty and ugliness of our times; it warns us now how much we have to lose.’ 

McCarthy died earlier this month at the age of 89. 

Also available as an e-book (2009 edition).  

There are many works by McCarthy available at the EFL. You can browse them on SOLO. 


Cover image for 'The Great White Bard' by Farah Karim-Cooper. The cover is an image of a painting of a Black person, with the title in large white letters on top. Farah Karim-Cooper, The Great White Bard: Shakespeare, Race and the Future (2023) 

Karim-Cooper is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at King’s College London, and Co-Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe. That background in education is reflected in the book’s aim ‘to restore the swan of Avon as a playwright for all’. She is careful to understand Shakespeare within his Tudor context while emphasising that this was not an all-white England, and argues that Shakespeare’s work remains relevant to modern readers and audiences. The challenge is to consider ‘how students … or actors of colour … can get to grips with the excessively valued and quite sublime poetry that just happens to, at times, diminish their own bodies’. 

Also by Karim-Cooper at the EFL: The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage: Gesture, Touch and the Spectacle of Dismemberment (2016). She has also edited a number of volumes about Shakespeare, which you can find on SOLO. 


Cover image for 'Bread and Circus' by Airea D. Matthews. The cover has a light blue background, with a composite silhouette of a person's face in profile, made up of images includes photos of body parts, a circus tent, and the suits (club, space, heart, diamond) of a desk of cards.Airea D. Matthews, Bread and Circus (2023) 

Bread and Circus is ‘a hybrid and palimpsestic memoir-in-verse‘, ‘a bold poetic reckoning with the realities of class and race and their intergenerational effects’. As an economics student, Matthews became ‘fascinated and disturbed’ by the ideas of Adam Smith, and here she issues a ‘direct challenge’ to his theories. She demonstrates how Smith’s emphasis on self-interest as the driver of capitalism falls apart when the individual becomes a commodity. From the perspective of the different roles she has performed through her life, Matthews ‘asks what it is to have survived, indeed to have flourished’ amidst this capitalist failure – ‘and at what cost’. 


Cover image for 'The Trouble with White Women' by Kyla Schuller. The cover has a yellow background with a pink-toned image of a woman on the left hand side. The title is in large black letters across the cover.Kyla Schuller, The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism (2021) 

In this work, Schuller aims to ‘demonstrate the case for the end of white feminism, and its replacement by intersectional feminism’. To that end, the book is structured around comparisons between the writing of white feminists and intersectional feminists. Schuller makes clear that she sees ‘white feminism’ as a political position rather than an identity, one which upholds both the patriarchy and white supremacy. This is an incredibly rich account, full of ‘complexity, contradiction and nuance’ which succeeds in its aim to bring to the fore intersectional feminists whose work and ideas are not as celebrated as they could be. 

Pride at the EFL

To celebrate Pride this year, we’ve put together a display in the library exploring the different ways LGBTQIA+ literature and themes are represented in the library’s collections. You may have seen the display in the library, but if you haven’t had a chance to see it yet – or if you’d like to find out more about some of the ideas in the display – this is the blog post for you!

There are two parts to the Pride display. The first is based on the LGBTQIA+ acronym, highlighting books from the EFL’s collections featuring characters, themes, or ideas which link to each identity. The second part of the display focuses on queer theory from its emergence in the late twentieth century to twenty-first century scholarship. At the end of this post, you can find a list of resources which were used to put this display together, and which you might like to use as a starting point to find out more about these topics.


A capital-letter 'L' in the colours of the Lesbian Pride flag. From top to bottom, those colours are: dark orange, orange, light orange, white, light pink, pink, dark pink.Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

The revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those ‘outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women’. Uncompromising, angry and yet full of hope, this collection of her essential prose – essays, speeches, letters, interviews – explores race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic and the need for female solidarity, and includes her landmark piece ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’.”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website.  

Why is Lorde an interesting writer and thinker?

The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, and it’s often associated with Third Wave (late twentieth century) feminism. Lorde’s writing definitely fits the description of intersectional work: her thought encompasses race, sexuality and gender and explores how these combine to enact oppression, especially for non-heteronormative Black women.


A capital-letter 'G' in the colours of the MLM (men loving men) Pride flag. From top to bottom, the colours are: dark green, green, light green, white, light blue, blue, dark blue.Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets (2021)

Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favour by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website.

What’s up with gay historical fiction?

Being gay is nothing new, yet it has often been hard to recognise and find out about people in the past who might today identify with the LGBTQ+ community. Into this gap steps historical fiction, offering an experimental space to explore both the past and the present constraints of academic queer literary studies. It’s important to remember that queer historical fiction – much like any other subgenre of historical fiction – often reveals the present as much as the past. We see this in The Prophets, which examines the damaging effects of the forced, violent imposition of a western Christian worldview on other practices, cultures and beliefs.


A capital-letter 'B' in the colours of the Bisexual Pride flag. From top to bottom, those colours are: dark pink, purple, dark blue.F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1991), originally published 1925

Nick Carraway is an aspiring writer; his cousin, Daisy, is married to the fabulously wealthy Tom Buchanan. Their neighbour, Jay Gatsby, throws extravagant and extraordinary parties in the exclusive and hallowed neighbourhood of West Egg. The entanglements between these four characters form the backbone of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest work.”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website.

But Fitzgerald never says Nick is bisexual …

In 1979, Keath Fraser became the first scholar to suggest Nick Carraway was in love with Gatsby; many others have followed Fraser in arguing that Nick is either gay or bisexual (he mentions affairs and relationships with women in the novel). It’s significant that Nick’s sexuality is not explicit, but rather suggested through misdirection and elision. Considering that almost every social issue, from race to class and gender, overtly features in the narrative, the topic of sexuality is notable by its absence; indeed, ‘sexual transgression [is] the open secret of the novel’ (Froehlich, 2010).


A capital-letter 'T' in the colours of the Trans Pride flag. From top to bottom, those colours are: blue, pink, white, pink, blue.Travis Alabanza, Overflow (2020)

Cornered into a flooding toilet cubicle and determined not to be rescued again, Rosie distracts herself with memories of bathroom encounters. Drunken heart-to-hearts by dirty sinks, friendships forged in front of crowded mirrors, and hiding together from trouble. But with her panic rising and no help on its way, can she keep her head above water?”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website.

What’s the link between Overflow and current debates?

Public toilets, and especially women’s toilets, have become a controversial focal point in debates around trans rights. Concerns about cis women’s safety in public toilets are frequently expressed, but what Alabanza shows in Overflow is that safety is just as much an issue for Trans women. The play centres around Rosie, who is hiding from would-be attackers in a public toilet, as she reflects on topics including the camaraderie that is often experienced in women’s toilets, whether cis women can extend that camaraderie to be allies of Trans women, and ultimately whether that’s something Trans women even want.


A capital-letter 'Q' in the colours of the Genderqueer Pride flag. From top to bottom, those colours are: purple, white, green.(Gender) Queer: Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (2017), originally published in 1969

“A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters.”

This summary is taken from the author’s website.

A capital-letter 'Q' in the colours of the Genderqueer Pride flag. From top to bottom, those colours are: purple, white, green.(Gender) Queer: Andrea Lawlor, Paul takes the form of a mortal girl (2019), originally published 2017

It’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flaneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Paul transforms his body and his gender at will as he crossed the country––a journey and adventure through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure.”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website.

Are Le Guin and Lawlor talking about the same thing?

Both these novels reject gender norms, but Le Guin and Lawlor portray this rejection and its effects differently. In The Left Hand of Darkness, the inhabitants of Winter wholly reject binary gender systems rendering them wholly incomprehensible to Genly Ai, the human ambassador, who is equally alien to them. On Winter, gender is almost entirely unimportant and unremarkable. But for Paul in Lawlor’s novel, exploring all gender experiences is the whole point. These two novels may share a radical rejection of gender norms, but they do so in very different ways, showing the breadth and diversity that can be found in queer literature.


A capital-letter 'I' in the colours of the Intersex Pride flag. Those colours are a yellow background with a purple circle in the middleJeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2013), originally published 2002

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”

“So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and her truly unique family secret, born on the slopes of Mount Olympus and passed on through three generations. Growing up in 70s Michigan, Calliope’s special inheritance will turn her into Cal, the narrator of this intersex, inter-generational epic of immigrant life in 20th century America.”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website.

What does it mean to write an ‘intersex’ or a ‘queer’ novel?

In Middlesex, Eugenides enacts a complete rejection of the body as a fixed measure of identity. This is manifest in Calliope/Cal changing from female to male, bringing into question the importance of gender as a marker of identity. But as well as this literal rejection of the body, Eugenides does the same in the novel’s narrative structure. Cal routinely inhabits the heads, thoughts and actions of other characters – even experiencing events which took place long before Cal was born. Consequently, what we see in Middlesex is queer themes alongside queer structures, amounting to a ‘queering’ of the novelistic form.


A capital-letter 'A' in the colours of the Aromantic Pride flag. From top to bottom, those colours are: dark green, light green, white, grey, black.Jane Austen, Emma (1971), originally published 1815

“Oft-copied but never bettered, Jane Austen’s Emma is a remarkable comedy of manners. Austen follows the charming but insensitive Emma Woodhouse as she sets out on an ill-fated career of match-making in the little town of Highbury. Taking the pretty but dreary Harriet Smith as her subject, Emma creates misunderstandings and chaos as she tries to find Harriet a suitor, until she begins to realize it isn’t the lives of others she must try to transform.”

This summary is taken from the publisher’s website. 

Can you really say Emma is aromantic if Jane Austen wouldn’t know what that meant?

Austen’s novels are saturated with romantic love – but Emma Woodhouse seems to be the exception. She declares her disinclination for marriage, saying she has never been in love; she takes an exclusively rational approach to matchmaking; and she talks herself into feeling love, though she reasons herself out of love just as easily!

There are challenges when trying to apply modern terms and identities onto people (or in this case, characters) who wouldn’t recognise those terms. But aromantic readers still recognise their own experiences in the character of Emma. It’s interesting to note that these readings are generally coming from readers themselves, not from academia. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that – after all, recognising our own experiences in fiction is a huge part of what reading is about! 


A 'plus' shape in the colours of the LGBTQ+ Progress flag. From top to bottom, the colours are: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. The colours of the triangles coming from the left hand side, pointing to the right: yellow background with purple circle, white, pink, blue, brown, black.Books with LGBTQIA+ characters and themes are just one of the ways in which LGBTQIA+ literatures are represented at the EFL. We also have a number of works of queer theory, a field which emerged in the 1970s and 80s and which continues to grow and develop. You can find a few examples below – all but one of them are available as e-books too!


Late Twentieth-Century Queer Studies

Cover images, from left to right: Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; The Apparitional Lesbian, by Terry Castle.In the late twentieth century, works of both historical and literary scholarship emerged which looked to a queer history, a lineage of queer lives, experiences and literary artefacts. The two examples here are Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1985), and The Apparitional Lesbian by Terry Castle (1995). 

The context of the late twentieth century and developments within the LGBTQIA+ community is an important facet of these studies. ‘We’re here, We’re queer, Get used to it was the famous chant of gay activists in New York in the 1990s, a powerful assertion of queer presence. What scholars like Castle and Sedgwick were doing was asserting the long history of that presence. 


Twenty-First Century Queer Studies

Cover images, from left to right: After Queer Studies, edited by Tyler Bradway and E. L. McCallum; Queer Disappearance in Modern and Contemporary Fiction, by Benjamin Bateman. Compared to the environment in which Castle and Sedgwick were writing, twenty-first century queer studies is more secure as a field. That security is apparent studies like Benjamin Bateman’s work, Queer Disappearance in Modern & Contemporary Fiction (2023). Whereas earlier scholarship focused on queer presence – a political as much as a scholarly aim – Bateman turns to other ways of existing (or disappearing) ‘queerly’, as do others who, for example, consider queer experiences of time and rejections of ‘chrono-normativity’. Overviews such as After Queer Studies (2019) can similarly be read as testaments to the security of the field, as they reflect on the emergence of queer studies and, crucially, look to the future. 


Want to find out more?

If you’d like to find out more about queer studies, theory and literature, the Cambridge Companions and Cambridge Histories can be a great place to start. Each volume contains essays exploring different aspects of and debates within a given field and provide starting points for further research. What’s more, they’re available online with your Oxford SSO!

The books which feature in the display are The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies (2020) and The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature (2014), but these aren’t the only ones relevant to queer studies and theory. Visit the Cambridge Core website to search across all the Cambridge Collections and see what’s available.

The 'Collections & Series' landing page of the Cambridge.org website.

Search the Cambridge Collections & Series on their website. Copyright Cambridge University Press 2023.


And that’s it for this brief overview of some of the LGBTQIA+ literature and resources you can find at the EFL. As promised, you can find a list of sources and resources below!

Sources and Resources

Books used in this display (in the order they appear):

Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984). Also available as an e-book (2019 edition).

Jones, Robert, Jr., The Prophets (2021).

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Great Gatsby (1991).

Alabanza, Travis, Overflow (2020). Also available as an e-book.

Le Guin, Ursula K., ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’, in Hainish Novels & Stories (2017).

Lawlor, Andrea, Paul takes the form of a mortal girl (2019).

Eugenides, Jeffrey, Middlesex (2013).

Austen, Jane, Emma (1971).

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985). Also available as an e-book (2015 edition).

Castle, Terry, The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (1993).

Bateman, Benjamin, Queer Disappearance in Modern & Contemporary Fiction (2023). Also available as an e-book.

Bradway, Tyler, and E. L. McCallum (eds.), After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory and Sexuality in 21st Century (2019). Also available as an e-book.

Somerville, Siobhan B. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies (2020). Also available as an e-book.

McCallum, E. L., and Mikko Tuhkanen (eds.), The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature (2014). Also available as an e-book.

 

Other sources and resources

This list includes resources used in putting the display together. It’s not a definitive list of resources relating to the texts or themes in the display, but you could use it as a starting point to find out more.

Bradley, Cerys, Transphobic Hate Crime Report 2020 (10 June 2020).

Freccero, Carla, ‘The Queer Time of Lesbian Literature: History and Temporality’, in Jodie Medd (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature (2015), 19-31.

Froehlich, Maggie Gordon, ‘Jordan Baker, Gender Dissent, and Homosexual Passing in The Great Gatsby’, in The Space Between, 6:1 (2010), 81.

Herman, Daniel, ‘The Great Gatsby’s Nick Carraway: His Narration and His Sexuality’, ANQ, 30:4 (2017), 247-50.

Jackaman, Erick, ‘Overflow Review’, transingabout.com (16 December 2020). Accessed 31 May 2023.

Jaffe, Sara, ‘Queer Time: The Alternative to “Adulting”’, JSTOR Daily (10 January 2018). Accessed 31 May 2023.

Khong, Caitlin, ‘There’s A Place For Us: Aromanticism and Amatonormativity in Jane Austen’s Emma’, ArtsONE, 11 (2022). Accessed 31 May 2023.

Mullan, John, ‘Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides’, The Guardian (11 November 2011). Accessed 1 June 2023.

Murphy, Naoise, ‘Queering history with Sarah Waters: Tipping the Velvet, lesbian erotic reading and the queer historical novel’, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22:2 (2021), 7-18.

Parsons, Vic, ‘Travis Alabanza’s gripping new play teaches a powerful lesson about bathrooms, transphobia and female friendship’, PinkNews (16 December 2020). Accessed 31 May 2023.

Pearson, Wendy Gay, Veronica Hollinger, and Joan Gordon (eds.), Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction (2008) [e-book].

Russo, Stephanie, ‘“You are, like, so woke”: Dickinson and the anachronistic turn in historical drama’, Rethinking History, 25:4 (2021), 534-554.

Santovec, Mary Lou, ‘The Necessity of Intersectionality: A Profile of Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw’, Women in Higher Education, 26:3 (2017), 8-9.

Service Update: Long Vacation 2023

Introduction

As the sun finally comes out to herald the end of Trinity Term, congratulations to all our readers on making it through another busy exam period! We hope you all have a fun and restful summer break. We’ve also got some information to share for finalists, as well as upcoming changes that will affect long vac library service.

Finalists

Loans

If you’re completing your courses this year, please return items on loan before the end of term and prior to the expiration of your University card.

Print, Copy and Scan (PCAS)

If you’re leaving us this summer, do use up any remaining PCAS balance as it cannot be refunded. On request, credit can be transferred to another PCAS account. Please email pcas@bodleian.ox.ac.uk if you need assistance.

Becoming an Alum?

As an Oxford alum you can take advantage of a number of benefits, including free access to the Bodleian Libraries and certain eresources. Learn more at the link below!

Getting started: Alumni | Bodleian Libraries

Vacation Opening Hours

The library will move to vacation opening hours from 19th June, with a closed period of 14th-28th August inclusive. Opening hours during the vacation are:

Monday to Friday: 9:00-17:00

Vacation loans

Vacation loans for normal loans start on 12th June and 15th June for short loans.
Loans issued from these dates will be due back during the first week of Michaelmas Term, starting 9th October.

Change of Library Management System

During the summer, the Bodleian Libraries are moving to a new and improved library management system called ALMA, with a go-live date of 24th August. The project is a significant undertaking and there will be a transition period of a week, 16th August to 23rd August, where data is migrated between systems. A number of library services will be affected during this period as a result. Details are captured in the Message for our Readers notices displayed in the library’s reading rooms.

Lending Books

You will be able to borrow and return books. For one week, 16th-23rd August, online circulation will be replaced with offline circulation and the data transferred to the new system when live. The real time book availability displayed on SOLO will not be updated for these offline transactions but, on request, library staff can verify availability for readers travelling to the library for particular items. Self-issue machines will not operate between 16th-23rd August. Please note access to online resources, both on campus and remote access, will be unaffected.

Requesting books from closed stacks

Automated stack requesting from SOLO will not be available between 16th-23rd August and readers are advised to place stack requests for books and archives in advance by 15th August. Libraries will extend the due date so that nothing ordered in advance will be returned to the stacks during the cutover period. A limited staff-mediated option will be available to manage requests placed between 16th-23rd August, but readers are urged to place requests in advance where possible. If you require the use of the staff mediated stack requesting service, email book.fetch@bodleian.ox.ac.uk between 16th-23rd August.

Scan & Deliver, Print & Deliver and Inter-library Loans

These services will be unavailable from 16th-23rd August inclusive. Readers are advised to place requests by 15th August or wait until 24th August.

MySOLO

Saved searches and records in MySOLO will not migrate to the new system. Favourites can be exported until the 15th August. To export: log in to MySOLO, select ‘export’ and choose your mode of exporting (Excel, email, print, RefWorks, EndNote and Zotero). There is no way to export saved searches. Readers who use those will need to set them up again once the new system goes live – apologies for any inconvenience caused. For more information see our reference management guide.


Stay up to date with developments at the English Faculty Library by following us on Twitter. Updates affecting the Bodleian Libraries as a whole will be published on the Service updates webpage. Any questions about library services updates can be addressed to efl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.