The Black Queer Studies Collection, which is designated digitally through notes in library catalog records, is meant to feature, promote and increase the discoverability of the UT Libraries’ unique holdings in the area of African and African Diasporic Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. The Black Queer Studies Collection is a groundbreaking project in librarianship in that it addresses standard obstacles posed by the Library of Congress Subject Headings and information retrieval systems to locating materials by and about Black Diasporic LGBTQ people.
Titles designated for the collection carry this note, which is searchable in the Library Catalog: "Black Queer Studies Collection."
The collection Carry the Word: A Bibliography of Black LGBTQ Books, edited by Steven G. Fullwood, Reginald Harris, and Lisa C. Moore (Redbone Press/Vintage Entity Press, 2007) makes the collection possible and guides the addition of old and new materials. Titles already owned by the Libraries are being retroactively added to the collection. Additional materials, including books, films and musical recordings, are being added to the collection with subject-designated library funds.
The collection grows with annual support from the Center for Women's and Gender Studies, the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, the Department of English, and the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies.
Special thanks to Matt Richardson, Lindsey Schell, and K.A. Hogan for their work in creating the Black Queer Studies Collection in 2009. Read more about how the collection started.
BQSC Guide created by K.A. Hogan in 2010, with significant additions made by Hayley Morgenstern in 2016 and Ginny Barnes in 2018.
Questions?
Contact Gina Bastone, Women's and Gender Studies and LGBTQA+ Studies Librarian: g.bastone@austin.utexas.edu
Elsewhere & Otherwise: Imagination & Worldmaking in the Black Queer Studies Collection. Nathan Alexander Moore, PhD candidate in African and African Diaspora Studies, curated a digital exhibit featuring books and films from the Black Queer Studies Collection.
The collection was featured in QT Voices, the LGBTQ Studies program's online magazine, in September 2020. This feature includes student reviews of books and films in the collection, and a retrospective marking the collection's 10 year anniversary.
The Black Queer Studies Collection was featured on the Perry-Castañeda's 3rd Floor Display Shelf for Pride Month in 2019.
Former UT grad student Hayley Morgenstern curated an exhibit for the Perry-Castañeda Library Scholar Commons featuring materials from the Black Queer Studies Collection. It included biography and memoir, critical and scholarly texts, fine art, music, poetry, theater, science fiction, and film all centering black queer experience. Learn more about the exhibit.
We want to hear from you! Send us your book suggestions and requests through the Libraries' Suggest a Purchase form, and add a note that it's for the Black Queer Studies Collection!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.