“Coming out, going out, photographing, and being photographed were intertwined activities through which new forms of queerness and community became visible.” - excerpt from current TUAG exhibition description for As the World Burns: Queer Photography and Nightlife in Boston.
Representational justice can loosely be described as the politics of visibility. It surfaces questions not just about who is represented but how and by whom they are represented; it places emphasis on visibility as a mechanism for constructing narratives about ourselves and others.
This Spring, Tisch Library will be exploring representational justice through a series of loosely connected events, posts and workshops. Through this series we will consider:
- What are the ways that becoming visible can help create and shape our understanding of the stories, connections, and communities that are not only possible but already in play?
- How can being visible have real world impacts which might require forms of visibility that obscure, withhold, embellish or deceive?
- How do archives, library resources and library work contribute to what worlds are (or aren’t) visible to our users?
The series will culminate with the Greater Boston Digital Research and Pedagogy Symposium whose keynote speaker is K.J Rawson. Rawson’s work focuses on archives as key sites of cultural power and he studies the rhetorical work of queer and transgender archival collections in brick-and-mortar and digital spaces.
This page highlights both library and non-library events that we feel contribute to this conversation. It will update periodically to highlight posts and recently posted events or workshops. Have an event or resource to add to this page? Reach out to tischdds@tufts.edu.
Date:Friday, January 26, 2024
Time:1:00pm - 2:45pm
Location:Tisch Digital Design Studio (DDS)
Sound is evocative. Sound includes voices and words, emotive notes and music, By working with existing sound recordings, creating meaning through layers, contrasts, repetition, we can say something of our own in immersive and connected ways. This workshop will explore sound art, giving participants a chance to make something of their own.
Date: Wed, Feb 7 2024, 6-7pm
Location: Africana Center
In this workshop, BFA student Julie Francois shares her creative practice for working with personal and archival photographs...
As part of our Just Portrayal Series, Aliza Keegan, DDS Media Equipment Assistant at Tisch Library, explores Representational Justice through resources available through Tisch Library.
Representational Justice is not only about bringing attention to the experience of historically marginalized groups, but also about reckoning with the role that media and art play in supporting institutionalized racism, and other social injustice.....
Date: Wed, Feb 14 2024, 12 - 3pm, Drop-in for a bit or stay for the entire session! We will have some birthday treats available for participants!
Location: Tisch Library 223
Douglass Day is an annual program that marks the birth of Frederick Douglass. Join us on Wed. February 14, 2024 for a transcribe-a-thon to help create new & freely available resources for learning about Black history. Learn more about the history of Douglass Day. We will also view the virtual event hosted by the Library of Congress that will run concurrently during our transcribe-a-thon.
This year we will transcribe the correspondence of Frederick Douglass held at the Library of Congress (LOC) on the crowdsourcing platform, By the People. Your transcriptions will be reviewed and published on loc.gov to improve search, access, and discovery of these pages from history.
Date: Friday, February 23, 2024
Time: 12:00pm - 12:50pm
Location: Tisch Library 223
ArcGIS StoryMaps is a digital storytelling tool that allows you to combine interactive maps with narrative text, images, and multimedia. With the rise of geographic information systems (GIS), accessible online tools and modes of publication, digital mapping has become a powerful tool for underrepresented and marginalized communities to tell their own stories, resisting colonial narratives and visualizing erased histories. With ArcGIS tools, communities can combine oral histories, archival documents, and interactive tours.
Date: Wed, Mar 6 2024, 12 - 1pm
Location: Tisch Digital Design Studio (DDS)
How we organize (or don’t) the various media we collect can help to either facilitate or obscure connection. In this workshop we’ll start by looking at Homosaurus, an international LGBTQ+ vocabulary to enhance discoverability of LGBTQ+ resources, as an example for making connections and worlds visible. We’ll introduce best practices for file management, then focus specifically on organizing images using two different applications (Tropy and Adobe Bridge) for researchers and photographers. We hope by the end of this workshop you’ll leave with practical tools for organizing your images in a meaningful way.
Date: March 28th, 6-8:30pm
Location: SMFA at Tufts / Boston
Join Tufts University Art Galleries at the SMFA / Boston for a screening of Playland (2023), directed by Geordan West, “a boundary-pushing, transdisciplinary, hybrid film centered around the raucous activity of a time-bending night in Boston's oldest and most notorious gay bar, the Playland Café.”
Following the screening, curator Jackson Davidow of As the World Burns: Queer Photography and Nightlife in Boston will host a panel conversation with The History Project Executive Director Joan Ilacqua, and DJ and founder of Boudoir, matheus cabral. Their conversation will center upon how nightlife in queer communities creates solidarity and community in Boston and beyond.
Guide created by SMFA librarians to accompany TUAG exhibition's Christian Walker: The Profane and the Poignant and As the World Burns: Queer Photography and Nightlife in Boston. Includes resources, exhibition overview, questions for self-guided exploration and more.
Date: Friday, April 12, 2024
Location: Tisch Library
The Greater Boston Digital Research and Pedagogy Symposium is a city-wide gathering of students, scholars, and practitioners working at the intersection of technology and the humanities. The theme this year centers around research, teaching, and approaches engaged with queer digital humanities and critical mapping, and that explore and emphasize issues around identity, social justice, and technology. Keynote speaker K.J. Rawson.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024 | 4:30 - 6:30 pm | Barnum Hall - LL008
The next edition of Tufts GSAS Community Dialogue will feature a screening and panel discussion of Director Roberto Arevalo’s documentary Latinos on Campus at Tufts.
The 2010 Documentary Film provides “A probing, intimate look at the journey of Latino students into mainstream American higher education. The young Latinos featured, speak about their lives as students at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, yet their stories weave a much larger tale: That of families and communities from diverse geographies but a predominantly common placement within the American Landscape.”
Featuring a panel including Bárbara M. Brizuela (Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), Marvin Casasola (Director, Latinx Center), and Tufts students, this GSAS Community Dialogue is a collaboration between Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Tisch Library and Latinx Center.
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences values diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice and is committed to bringing to fruition those values for the benefit of our community of students, staff, and faculty. All members of the Tufts community—students, staff, and faculty, alumni—are welcome to attend.