International Women’s Day

In celebration of International Women’s Day, McGill Library has curated a diverse, intersectional book display of works by and about those who identify as women.

The display features contemporary works by noted feminist scholars, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Roxanne Gay, Audre Lorde, and Rebecca Solnit. These works touch on important topics in our current #MeToo era, such as the gender binary, the representation of Black women in art, identity politics, and speaking truth to power. If that’s your cup of tea, then be sure to check out Why I march: Images from the Women’s March around the world.

Following the recent Academy Award wins by Ruth E. Carter for Best Costume Design and Hannah Beachler for Best Production Design (both for Black Panther), the display also focuses on the role of women filmmakers throughout the world. Italian women filmmakers and the gendered screen features essays and interviews with acclaimed Italian women directors on their contribution to film. Latin American women filmmakers: Production, politics, poetics contains scholars providing in-depth analysis on the rise of female-led film in Latin America. Warriors, witches, whores: Women in Israeli cinema provides a feminist study of the Israeli film industry.

Given McGill Library’s robust collection of graphic novels, the book display features the work of women graphic novelists, cartoonists, and anime artists. Pretty in ink: North American women cartoonists, 1896-2013 is a comprehensive volume of works that range from a Holocaust survivor penning action/adventure comics to the First Nations army corporal behind the series G.I. Gertie. Black women in sequence: Re-inking comics, graphic novels, and anime covers everything from African goddesses to postracialism in comic books. We have also chosen to highlight the work of contemporary graphic novelists, such as Montreal native Julie Delporte’s latest Moi aussi je voulais l’emporter, a feminist autobiography.

International Women's Day

In light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the display contains important works by Indigenous authors: Kim Anderson’s book A recognition of being: Reconstructing Native womanhood; Mary Jane Logan McCallum’s Indigenous women, work, and history, 1940-1980; and Mothers of the Nations: Indigenous mothering as global resistance, reclaiming and recovery, edited by D. Memee Lavell-Harvard and Kim Anderson.

Take a moment to check out the wide variety of titles on display. From Single girl problems: Why being single isn’t a problem to be solved, to Feminist visions and queer futures in postcolonial drama, McGill Library has all your intersectional feminist reading needs covered.

New fall book display: Cundill History Prize

The Humanities and Social Sciences Library has put together a book display of Cundill History Prize winners, as well as titles that were longlisted for the Prize.

Administered by McGill University, the Cundill History Prize rewards the leading historians of our time. The nominated works embody historical scholarship, originality, literary quality, and broad appeal.

The Prize is named after McGill alumnus F. Peter Cundill (1938–2011), who was a philanthropist, sportsman, diarist, and renowned global investor.

The book display is located on the main floor on the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, in the Redpath Library building.

This year’s longlist will be announced on September 26, 2017.

For more information about the Cundill Prize, please visit: https://www.cundillprize.com/

How to Tell Real News From Malarkey

This month McGill Library hosted over 100 international high school students who are part of the McGill Summer Academy. The students were divided into two streams—International Relations and Neuroscience.  Humanities and Social Sciences Librarians, Katherine Hanz and Emily Kingsland, designed and led a mobile scavenger hunt for the 50 International Relations students, as well as a fake news workshop called Black, White, and Re(a)d: How to Tell Real News from Malarkey.

The workshop featured a game called Fake or For Real which incorporated an Instagram Story video series of the same name. It was created, produced, and kindly shared with the Library by Leah Green and Eleni Stefanou at The Guardian. Students were given a recent international news headline and asked to vote with their instincts – was this fake or for real? They then had less than minute to search online to find the answer and vote again.

The students – who are currently entering grades 11 and 12 – got into lively debates about the veracity of the news. It was an eye-opening experience for everyone – the librarians included!

The workshop was such a hit that it will be tailored and offered to McGill students this fall. So mark your calendars, folks! Click here to register.