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Celebrating Black History Month at the Taylor Institution Library 

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The Research Collection’s Black History Display in the Enquiry Desk room

As Oxford University’s library of modern languages and literature, the Taylor Institution has around 750,000 items in its care. These collections represent and explore a wide range of research interests, from Europe to the Caribbean, Celtic nations to Africa, and beyond. In doing so, the collections also recognise the problematic, colonial role Europe has played in Black history around the world. To celebrate Black History Month 2023 at the Taylor, and to demonstrate the diverse yet complex nature of our subject specialisms, I was given the opportunity to put together two book displays, one in the Teaching Collection and the other in the Research Collection, to celebrate this BHM’s theme: Saluting our Sisters. Here, I want to describe the display to you, as well as explain some of the reasoning behind picking out the books that I did!

The Books

Deciding where to start when choosing books for the display was difficult, to say the least – there were so many books that deserve the spotlight! Eventually, I settled on attempting to provide a taste of the wide range of resources we provide at the Taylor, while sticking to the theme as closely as possible. I also wanted to demonstrate the ever-evolving nature of the scholarship available. As a result, I decided to start with texts on Black feminism to give readers the chance to understand the theoretical background of the other materials on display. For the most part, these texts can be found in the gender studies section of the Main Reading Room and include the likes of Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (2009) and Jennifer C. Nash’s Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality (2019). These texts focus on theories of intersectionality and the lived realities of Black women. Collins explores the complexities of Black women’s experiences in dealing with hierarchies of oppression and power. Meanwhile, Nash’s more recent work provides a new perspective by challenging the direction that Black feminist theory is currently headed within the field of women’s studies. By suggesting these two texts, I hoped to provide a basis from which to understand Black feminist theory, as well as an indication of where the field is headed.

The Black History Month Book Display on the First Floor of the Teaching Collections.

Works on the literature of Afro-Caribbean and Lusophone African writers also feature on the displays. In particular, they focus on the works of Black women such as Maryse Condé and Gisèle Pineau, with the likes of Reimagining Resistance in Gisèle Pineau’s Work (2023) and Conversations with Maryse Condé (1996) highlighting their work. Pineau’s novels are especially important in challenging Europe’s “colour-blindness,” and many of her works are available at the Taylor in the original French, such as Un Papillon dans la Cite (1992) and L’exil selon Julia: Récit (2020). Condé, on the other hand, is famous for her transgressions of identity, whether that be racial or gendered. She draws heavily on history to inform her own writing, for example in her work Ségou (1984) and Moi, Tituba, Sorcière (1986). To offer background for these texts, I also included American Creoles: The Francophone Caribbean and the American South (2012), as I thought this shed an up-to-date and exciting light on the historical impact and future potential of Caribbean literature.

Natalya Vince, Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012

In terms of history, some of the texts also explore the contributions that Black women made in establishing civil rights, as well as national independence from colonial oppression. Two that stood out to me the most included Tiffany N. Florvil’s Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German women and the making of a transnational movement (2020) and Natalya Vince’s Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012 (2015). Florvil focuses on sexuality and race to demonstrate the impact that Black German women played in forming the cultural, intellectual and social movement of Black German liberation in the 1980s. Meanwhile, Vince bases her research on women’s oral testimonies of the Algerian fight against French colonialism from 1954 to 2012. In doing so, she provides insight into how women perceived their nation post-independence and how this impacted wider national memory. Both are completely different in their methodological undertakings but are equally fascinating areas of twentieth  century history!

Tiffany N. Florvil, Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement

Lastly, as I pulled the displays together, picking books and narrowing down my choices, I found that themes of resistance and identity were very strong in almost all of the texts. To provide background for this, I felt it was also necessary to display Franz Fanon’s seminal work on anti-colonialist theory, The Wretched of the Earth (2004 [1961]), as well as the more recent work on postcolonial writings such as postcolonial writings such as American Creoles. Ultimately, this tied into my aim with the display: to recognise where today’s scholarship in Black history and literature stems from, and where it is going now.

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Check out our X (Twitter) page to find out what else we Trainees have been doing to celebrate Black History Month! 

 

 

Bibliography:

Collins, Patricia Hill Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edition, (London: Routledge, 2009)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990168122200107026

 https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214674470107026 (Tenth Anniversary e-book edition)

Connell, Lisa A. (ed.), Reimagining Resistance in Gisèle Pineau’s Work (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2023)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990234024960107026

Condé, Maryse and Françoise Pfaff (ed.), Conversations with Maryse Condé (London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990121592680107026

Fanon, Franz, and Richard Philcox (trans.), The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004 [1961])

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990159505740107026

Florvil, Tiffany Nicole, Mobilising Black Germany: Afro-German women and the making of a transnational movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990223034800107026

Munro, Martin and Celia Britton, American Creoles: The Francophone Caribbean and the American South (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990193363250107026

e-Book edition: https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/q6b76e/alma991022071082907026

Nash, Jennifer C., Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2019)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990217959030107026

E-Book edition: https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991002555199707026

Vince, Natalya, Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015)

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1mkpd6e/alma990203307750107026

Clara Oxley, Taylor Institution Library

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Hello! My name is Clara, and I am the current trainee at the Taylor Institution Library, or the ‘Taylorian,’ Oxford University’s library of modern languages and literature other than English. As a trainee in Section 3 of the Bodleian, I am also working at the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library and the Nizami Ganjavi Library, the latter of which specialises in Asian and Middle Eastern studies. Despite this, the Taylor is where my traineeship is mostly based. Here, we have around 750,000 books both on and off site that range from languages such as French, Slavonic and Greek, to subjects such as Gender studies, Celtic studies and linguistics. I do have a little knowledge of French, having studied the language during my first undergraduate year of English Literature and History at the University of Glasgow. However, my background lies mostly in Gender History, which I studied as a Masters at Glasgow University as well. After graduating, I went on to try my hand in the heritage and tourism industry at Stirling Castle before being offered this exciting opportunity to work in librarianship at the Bodleian.

The Taylor’s Main Reading Room

Like every library at Oxford University, the Taylor is unique in its own way; comprised of two buildings, one built in the 1840s and the other during the 1930s, it offers different, yet equally welcoming, environments for staff and readers. The 1930s side of the building mainly houses our Teaching and DVD Collections, the former of which is tailored (no pun intended!) for undergraduate study and reading lists. This is also where the Issue Desk is situated. The older half of the library is where the Enquiry Desk can be found, as well as our Research Collection and the library’s most popular place to study – the Main Reading Room. With chandeliers, a fireplace and a spiral staircase leading to the gallery, I too would find it a great place to read and find inspiration for an essay! The basement is where the Slavonic section is kept, as well as the Celtic studies material and more.

This last month has flown by, but I have learnt so much and met so many lovely (and patient!) colleagues and fellow trainees. So far, my time has comprised of learning how to use Alma, getting to grips with the varying shelving systems of the Taylor, setting up book displays and learning how to help readers effectively – I’m really excited to see what else this year will bring! I am especially looking forward to the trainee trip to the Collections Storage Facility in Swindon, as well as contributing to this blog. For now, the hope is to develop my career in academic librarianship, perhaps as a subject librarian or in special collections, but I will just have to wait and see what this year brings, and what inspires me the most in this role!