Category: Diversity & Equality

  • The Anti-Gay Agenda: The Rise of Political Homophobia in Eastern Europe

    The Anti-Gay Agenda: The Rise of Political Homophobia in Eastern Europe

    Though eastern Europe has never been an exemplary model for human rights, the past few years have engendered major concerns for the LGBTQIA+ (LGBT) community within this region. Key political leaders across eastern Europe have chosen to use the LGBT community as scapegoats for underlying societal issues and to bolster campaign platforms to garner the […]

  • Why Do We Need Comprehensive LGBTQ+ Sex Education in the United States?

      Upon graduating in the spring, I hope to pursue a career that focuses on community building and support for LGBTQ+ youth, by ensuring that they have access to comprehensive sexual health education. There are many misconceptions about the age-appropriate content that youth should be exposed to, and I hope to close that gap to […]

  • Thinking-feeling the Louise Lennihan Arts and Sciences Grant Showcase

    Thinking-feeling the Louise Lennihan Arts and Sciences Grant Showcase

    “Otro Mundo es Posible”, by Beatriz Aurora, from her collection “Historias Pintadas: el color de la lucha zapatista”. Source: Araucanía Thinking-feeling the Louise Lennihan Arts and Sciences Grant Showcase The Futures Initiative supported eight student projects with the Dr. Louise Lennihan Arts and Sciences Grant this year. On November 11th, we came together to share […]

  • Language: A Major Barrier for Vaccinations.

    Language: A Major Barrier for Vaccinations.

    On April 28th in Surrey, British Columbia, the Fraser Health Authority had opened up “pop up” clinics in order to mass vaccinate major hot spot areas in Surrey at Newton Athletic Park. This pop-up clinic opened with very communication amongst the public with hundreds showing up at the parks from word-of-mouth. After speaking with a […]

  • Race, Racism, and Scholarship on Premodern Race Today

    Dear colleagues,  It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on HASTAC—for which, my deep apologies—but just before the holidays, I published a blog essay entitled “Why the Hate? The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, and Race, Racism, and Premodern Critical race studies today”: https://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2020/12/why-hate-invention-of-race-i… The essay uses a 46-page screed (published as a book […]

  • Oregon and White Supremacy Annotated Bibliography

    Oregon and White Supremacy Annotated Bibliography

    I originally created this annotated bibliography as part of a project to design a survey about white supremacy in academic libraries for ACRL-Oregon.  During the ACRL-Oregon and Washington joint conference in October 2019, librarians discussed the 2017 shooting of a protester by a white supremacist student at the University of Washington.  Academic librarians expressed a […]

  • White Supremacy and Oregon Academic Libraries

      Why is it important to explore the relationship between white supremacy and academic libraries in general, let alone Oregon academic libraries?  The answer begins with statistics.  According to the most recent American Library Association diversity count, librarianship remains overwhelmingly white, with only 12% of credentialed librarians identifying as racial or ethnic minorities (“Diversity Counts” […]

  • The Problem of Defining Civilization

        “Civilized” is often used as loaded ethical language.  Traditionally, whenever we praise human action, we call it “civilized,” whether it is table manners or peacemaking.  This use of the word civilized leads us to the assumption that civilization is good, and hunter-gatherer culture bad.     The view that civilization is bad and hunter-gatherer culture […]