NOTE: This project was conducted as part of the CIS 668 (Social Justice and Inclusion Advocacy) class during fall 2023. This analysis and event planning in collaboration with Magik Press of New London, CT focuses on working class artists and zinesters. For more information, please explore the menu. On this page, I share my slides, which provide an overview of the anthology texts and their themes. I reflect upon how gender impacts library work and memory work.
Here is a link to my presentation of selected readings on October 9, 2023 for CIS 668. The topic of social justice and inclusion advocacy for the semester included a focus on the topics of sexism, heterosexism (often called by homophobia instead), and trans oppression. Recurring themes included (un)acceptable forms of transition both within and out of the trans community, socioeconomic conditions and their impact on gender, along with modes of hypervisibility/invisibility through gender presentation and body type. Although time was limited, I found it beneficial to hear my classmates describe their experiences in the field of library and information science specifically through the lens of gender. As a nonbinary person, I believe it is vital to speak from personal experience and bear witness to lives I cannot relate to. As the edition of our text is from a few years ago (but less than a decade), I wonder now what gender expansive experiences could bolster the existing selection. As it relates to family policing and juvenile court enforcing gender roles, more text about youth under today's attempted book censorship comes to mind. As it relates to my own social justice project, it made me keep in mind the intergenerational perspectives that are often missing in discussions of sexuality and gender due to not just ageism but the number of lives lost during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.