Teaching gender with libraries and archives
Teaching Gender with Libraries and Archives: The Power of Information serves as a pedagogical tool, aimed at stimulating academics and students to reflect critically on libraries and archives as profoundly gendered knowledge spaces. It is available in the Teaching with Gender book series, published by ATGENDER and CEU press in 2013.
The authors address questions such as how to research gender in a library that only holds one copy of ‘The Second Sex’ or how a critique of library classification systems may strengthen feminist claims to knowledge. They also explore ways in which the histories of women’s and gender studies and women’s and gender libraries are intertwined, what postmodern perspectives on knowledge may add to library and archive practices.
Finally, the authors reflect on the absence of women’s documents from official archives and on the stereotype of the female librarian that should be challenged by re-evaluating the political relevance of library and archival practices.
Each chapter offers suggestions for activities and discussions that can be used in or adapted to teaching settings.
Contribution Atria
Co-editor and contributor Sara de Jong (Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden) is affiliated researcher at Atria. Contributor Saskia Wieringa (University of Amsterdam) is affiliated professor at Atria, and contributors Tilly Vriend and Gé Meulmeester work at Atria. One of the chapters discusses the role of the library as knowledge broker by drawing on the institutional history of Atria.