[Fade in: books stacking]
THE GENDER AND SEXUALITY RESOURCE CENTER (OR THE GSRC) IS HAVING A SOFT OPENING ON CAMPUS THIS FALL. HAVING JUST MADE THE MOVE FROM THE THIRD FLOOR OF THE NORRIS STUDENT CENTER LAST YEAR, THE GSRC IS TAKING THE FALL TO ADJUST TO ITS LARGER, NEWLY-RENOVATED SPACE IN HOUSE FIVE OF THE FOSTER WALKER COMPLEX.
[Matthew Abtahi: We’re no longer relegated to three converted closets in the Norris Center, and rather, there’s a deliberate space that has very intentionally been curated by queer folks for queer folks. ]
THAT WAS MATTHEW ABTAHI, THE CURRENT DIRECTOR OF THE GSRC. HE SAYS THAT THE NEW SPACE HAS BEEN DESIGNED TO BETTER ACCOMMODATE NORTHWESTERN’S LGBTQ+ POPULATION, AS IT CONTINUES TO GROW.
[Matthew Abtahi: The original ask: they wanted a queer community space that could fit approximately 30 people. That clearly was not achievable in the north space. It’s a bit more achievable here.]
[Matthew Abtahi: They know what the trends are for our incoming students. And while our numbers are relatively high, kind of to par with our peer institutions, but a little higher than our peer institutions for queer students, we know that the number of trans and non-binary students are going to continue to grow. We know that the number of students that are identifying as LGBTQ A-plus are going to continue to grow. And so I think the university is pretty dedicated in making sure that there is a space that students can continue to grow and explore and understand their identities so that they can then also be full and engaged students across the Northwestern experience.]
[Fade in pages turning]
SINCE ITS FOUNDING BACK IN 2004, THE GSRC HAS MAINTAINED A BOOKSHELF. IT HAS OFFERED A WIDE VARIETY OF QUEER LITERATURE, INCLUDING CLASSIC TITLES SUCH AS GIOVANNI’S ROOM BY JAMES BALDWIN, AND NEWER TITLES, LIKE HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES BY SAEED JONES.
[Jonny: It’s an artifact. It’s a history. It’s history, a queer history. Those are probably some of the books that were donated back in the day that the Iraq bodice ripper. And that’s I think it is like, you know, when you go to the community libraries, we’ve got some in our neighborhoods and it’s so cute to see what other people drop off. And it’s kind of an interesting way to get to know other people in your community. ]
THAT WAS JONNY CAMERON, A FORMER GRADUATE ASSISTANT FOR THE SPACE, BACK WHEN IT WAS CALLED THE LGBT RESOURCE CENTER. THEY WORKED FOR THE SPACE BACK IN ITS INFANCY, RIGHT AS IT WAS GETTING READY TO OPEN ITS DOORS FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.
[Jonny: And we have the privilege of being entrusted with not only putting the books on the shelves, you know, and figuring out how we were going to just talk. But we were also responsible for doing programing that would be, you know, specific to undergrads versus faculty]
[Jonny: For all of us to there is finally a space where you could be among books like know the Lesbian Sex Book. We had to buy that a couple of times. That kept disappearing from the library]
ALTHOUGH AT TIMES THE SPACE HAS USED A CHECK-OUT SYSTEM, THE BOOKSHELF IN THE GSRC IS COMMUNAL. THIS MEANS THAT ANYONE IS OPEN TO EXPLORE THE TITLES ON THE SHELF AND BORROW ONE. PEOPLE ARE ALSO ENCOURAGED TO ADD TO THE CASE WITH SELECTIONS OF THEIR OWN.
[Jonny: Like, we got some lovely donations from different community members, some people who were staff and faculty and new and try to, you know, record the gifts that we got from people. But yeah, there were books on the shelves that were from people’s personal bookshelves that they just wanted to pass along to provide a bit more. That’s right.”
[Matthew: And my understanding was that it had been curated kind of just by the community. So the queer community at Northwestern many decades ago was really this kind of intergenerational faculty, staff, students when it was the Gay Liberation Front.]
WHEN LOOKING THROUGH THE TITLES IN THE SHELF, THERE IS INDEED A SENSE OF INTERGENERATIONAL DIALOGUE. WITH TITLES SPANNING HUNDREDS OF YEARS, SOME OF THE BOOKS BEING BRAND NEW AND OTHERS IN STATES OF DISREPAIR, IT’S CLEAR THIS BOOKCASE IS ACCOMODATING SEVERAL DIFFERENT ERAS OF DONORS. JONNY TALKED ABOUT HOW THIS CAN BE A WAY TO EMPOWER VOICES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST OR SILENCED.
[Jonny: Yeah, I think I think with that, you know, as far as the queer liberation movement in general, I mean, you know, we had we have a whole generation of gay male elders that do not exist anymore. And we had a whole generation of lesbians who watched their friends and cared for their friends as they died. And I think with that queer nation in Act Up, we’re like starting to do some pretty like, hey like they were doing some some protest that we’re seeing evocative and you know got under the skin of a lot of people but they finally started the conversation.]
HOWEVER, THIS ALSO ADDS ANOTHER TASK FOR STAFF MAINTAINING THIS LIBRARY: FILTERING OUT POTENTIALLY OUTDATED OR EVEN OFFENSIVE MATERIAL.
[Matt: I think the part that I’m very mindful of is when I got here, it was very clear as I reviewed the literature, that it really hadn’t been updated. And I don’t know how close to at least 5 to 10 years. There’s just some stuff that’s like dated literature, dated language that’s in the space. Still useful to kind of contextualize our community’s history, but also slightly irrelevant to someone who’s maybe coming out or trying to understand their identity. And there’s literature that is using words that nobody in community is using anymore.]
MANY OF THE OLDER, MORE OBSCURE TITLES OFFER A SIGNIFICANT LOOK INTO THE DEVELOPMENT OF QUEER LITERATURE. LIKE PRATER VIOLET, A STORY ABOUT A SCREENWRITER BACK IN MID-20TH-CENTURY LONDON. ALTHOUGH THERE’S LITTLE DISCUSSION OF LGBTQ+ THEMES WITHIN THE NOVEL, ITS AUTHOR CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD WAS ONE OF THE FEW OPENLY GAY NOVELISTS OF HIS TIME. BUT OTHER TITLES ARE LESS USEFUL, LIKE THE ALEXANDROS EXPEDITION BY PATRICIA SITKIN. ALTHOUGH IT CENTERS A GAY ROMANCE AS THE HEART OF THE STORY, ITS USE OF COLONIAL STEREOTYPES AND TROPES COMPROMISES ITS ABILITY TO BE A LEGITIMATE WINDOW INTO HISTORICAL QUEER LITERATURE.
BUT A MAJOR INITIATIVE OF THE GSRC HAS BEEN TO ACTIVELY ADD CONTEMPORARY WORKS OF QUEER LITERATURE INTO THE BOOKSHELF.
[Matt: So a lot of my work is staying in queer community, being in community with queer folks in Chicago and outside of the Illinois area and staying abreast to like national discourse, like that is literally my job. So as I knew and heard about titles or even as students would suggest titles, I would also just make a list. And at the end of the year, with whatever funds I have left over in my operational budget, I make sure to then update our reading list so that it’s something a little bit more relevant.]
THERE ARE OTHER COMMUNAL BOOKSHELVES AT NORTHWESTERN, NOTABLY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF CREATIVE WRITING. THESE SERVES SERVE A SIMILAR PURPOSE: TO KEEP STUDENTS AND FACULTY IN COMMUNITY WITH LITERATURE, BOTH CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL.
[Colin: We have a whole bunch of them in there, and that’s not for any agenda other than just like, Hey, here’s some journals so that you know what’s going on in your field. Go ahead and read them and see what other people are doing. It’s more of just a community community space for creative writing.]
THAT WAS COLIN POPE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CREATIVE WRITING AND ENGLISH. HE SAYS THAT COMMUNAL BOOKSHELVES AT NORTHWESTERN, AS WELL AS SCATTERED THROUGHOUT EVANSTON AND CHICAGO PROVIDE BOTH A WINDOW INTO A COMMUNITY, AS WELL AS A MEANS TO SUSTAIN IT.
[Colin: If we’re thinking of the same thing and there’s always a little kind of mini library book stands in neighborhoods where you can take a book or leave a book, and we’re thinking about that. Then those are curated by that community, that neighborhood. So it gives you a snapshot of the people in that place in a way that, like a city library might not. A city library’s job is to curate a kind of. Global or at least national understanding of what’s going on in like literature, but also just nonfiction like history books or science books and etc., etc.. A community. One of the small community libraries present a snapshot of a neighborhood and demonstrate to anybody who passes by that there are readers. In that area, which is it’s a it’s an affirmation that the life of books goes on.]
[Matt: And it’s really interesting because I have just spoken with an alum this past homecoming who swung through the space and he and he was a student in the seventies here, and he was telling me he was like, it’s really powerful to see a library like ours on campus where it’s like not even regulated or policed at all. Because when he was on campus, there were two books that were coded under homosexuality that were locked away and that students had to specifically ask for and show credentials to then be taken to a space where these books were. And that was the seventies. Like that was not that long ago.]
EVEN WITHOUT THOSE TYPES OF BARRIERS, JONNY RECALLS SIMILAR BARRIERS TO ACCESSING QUIEER LITERATURE IN THEIR YOUTH.
[Jonny: I moved to Austin and there’s this wonderful bookstore called Book People. It’s independently owned and sold in the nineties. You know, I’m here and I am doing the thing where I’m like, I feel like everyone’s looking at me and I’m like, find in the gay and lesbian bookshelf because that’s all it was. That’s right.]
DIRECTOR ABTAHI SAYS THAT NORTHWESTERN HAS COME A LONG WAY IN TERMS OF EXTENDING ACCESS TO QUEER LITERATURE.
[Matthew: And so for Northwestern to evolve to a place where now I’m out here just like letting anybody engage with any literature, and I, quite frankly, don’t even need to know what your name is, is a testament to how much how far we’ve gone, and that the library is actively working with us to curate and build out fiction and nonfiction literature around LGBTQ. And right now a specific target around trans and non-binary literature, I think, for me are good signs of where we’re still moving forward and there’s still more to do.]
AND PERHAPS, THE GSRC’S EXTENSION OF BOOKS AS COMMUNAL OBJECTS IS A STEP TOWARD MAKING SURE THERE’S SPACE FOR EVERYONE TO EXPLORE.
[Jonny: And to be near those books in that kind of section and, you know, it was so taboo and it was so the key to opening, you know, my own personal liberation journey.]
FOR WNUR NEWS, I’M PAUL O’CONNOR
