Monthly Archives: February 2025

Book display: Angela Davis

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Our new book display explores the life and work of scholar, writer and political activist Angela Davis.

Book display featuring several of the titles mentioned in this blog post, an A4 poster about Angela Davis and another poster with QR codes to ebooks and online resources. Several book covers depict Davis as a young Black woman with an Afro.

Davis has worked and campaigned over several decades for racial and gender equality, and wider social justice. She was a co-founder of Critical Resistance, an organisation working to dismantle the prison industrial complex, and was a longstanding member of the Communist Party USA, even running twice as their vice-presidential candidate in the 1980s. She was also a member of the Black Panther Party. Her academic work focuses on feminist and Marxist philosophy, critical theory, punishment and imprisonment, and African American studies. She is perhaps best known for her incarceration in 1970 and the “Free Angela Davis” movement that campaigned for her release until her acquittal in 1972.

Some of the books on our display were written or edited by Davis herself, such as Women, race and class and If they come in the morning: voices of resistance; other feature interviews with her or contributions from her, such as The Black Power mixtape: 1967-1975 and Angela Davis: seize the time.

We have also selected some titles which explore broader themes linked to Davis’ activism, experiences and areas of academic research. For example, Prison power: how prison influenced the movement for Black liberation and Captive nation: Black prison organizing in the civil rights era examine the relationship between incarceration and Black activism, while Davis’ Marxism and involvement in the Communist Party are reflected in the inclusion of We shall be free!: Black communist protests in seven voices and Organize, fight, win: black communist women’s political writing.

The book display can be found on the ground floor on the left hand side, near the armchairs and low table. Many of these books can be loaned out, and some are also available as ebooks via SOLO.

Readers may be interested in the following ebooks:

To find out more about using the Vere Harmsworth Library collections please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

New Alain Locke Collection Titles – Winter 2024-5 intake!

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The new selection of titles for the Alain Locke Collection are now available and on display in the Vere Harmsworth Library!

Alain Locke Display, taken January 2025

Readers will be able to see the new selections on the Ground Floor of the Library. This area, as part of our agreement with the Association of American Rhodes Scholars (AARS), will be dedicated to displaying and promoting the Collection.

With the kind agreement of the AARS, two collection intakes will be taken each year, totalling $10,000 worth of books per year.

You can see above a selection of the new titles now available. You can view the full list here and you can view all selected Alain Locke Collection titles here.

About the collection

In spring 2021, the VHL and RAI agreed to create the Alain Locke Collection with support from the AARS. Named after the first African American Rhodes Scholar, the collection aims to focus on research monographs in the areas of African American history, politics, biography and culture, alongside notable gaps in material not produced by commercial publishers.

The Bodleian is committed to providing students and researchers with world class access to resources to enable them to fulfil their scholarly ambitions. We are therefore hugely grateful to the AARS for pledging a gift of $25,000 over five years supporting the Alain Locke Collection. This supports our intention for the VHL to become a leading centre for the study of African American history, politics, and culture.

The establishment of the Alain Locke Collection will allow the VHL to expand the purchase of African American focused research monographs, without affecting expenditure on other research areas. It will build on the VHL’s current holdings and run alongside the continued intake of research monographs via the legal deposit agreements and e-book packages. It will allow the VHL to identify and address potential gaps in some of the older materials. Most significantly, it will demonstrate our commitment to representing African American history and culture within our collections.

Current students and researchers can recommend titles to be purchased for the Alain Locke Collection by contacting the Vere Harmsworth Librarian (bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

If you have any further questions about the Alain Locke Collection, or the display, please contact Bethan Davies. To find out more about supporting the Vere Harmsworth Library and the Alain Locke collection please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).