National Coming Out Day– free t-shirts and LGBTQ archival resources

The Rainbow Center on the 4th floor of the Student Union is offering free anti-homophobia t-shirts in honor of National Coming Out Day, so if you’re on campus, definitely stop by and pick one up. 

UConn Libraries are also celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History Month throughout October, with a resource guide on GLBTQ materials available at UConn

The Dodd Research Center has a significant number of archival materials dealing with LGBTQ themes:

The Alternative Press Collection:  Large collection of non-mainstream newspapers, journals, magazines, pamphlets, and other materials, including a significant number of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer liberation publications from the 1960s to the present.   GLBTQ magazines and newspapers in the Alternative Press Collection include Bay Windows, The Body Politic, Christopher Street, Fag Rag, Gay Sunshine, Lesbian Connection, and many more.  Check for other titles in HOMER

Foster Gunnison Papers: Contain letters, manuscripts, photographs and printed materials which document the homophile and gay liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Human Rights Research Workshop– Wed. October 10 at 4

Join me on Wednesday, October 10 at 4 PM in the Electronic Classroom 2 of Babbidge Library for a workshop on conducting human rights research. The workshop is being sponsored by Namaste, UConn’s student human rights journal, and will last a little under an hour.

At the Human Rights Research Workshop, we’ll be covering the following:

* Overview of the Human Rights Subject Guide and library resources for human rights
* Databases for human rights research and how to find peer-reviewed journal articles
* Search tricks for HOMER to find human rights materials
* Overview of the Dodd Center and human rights archival resources on campus

I hope to see you all there!

Human Rights Film Series Screening: Water (2005)

In case one screening of Deepa Mehta’s film, Water, wasn’t enough, there are actually two opportunities to watch and/or learn more about the film and historical conditions for women in India tomorrow (Tuesday, October 9).

The Human Rights Institute is screening Water as part of our ongoing Human Rights Film Series at 6 PM in Konover Auditorium at the Dodd Research Center.

Kappa Phi Lamda Sorority. Inc is sponsoring a discussion of the film at 5 PM across campus in the Asian American Cultural Center.

So, if you haven’t already seen this excellent  film, join us tomorrow in Konover!   If you have seen it already and would like to discuss it, drop by the Asisan American Cultural Center. 

Human Rights Archives News

A couple of things, quickly, and then I have to run and catch my train! 

As of this evening, I will be in New York attending a conference at Columbia University: “Human Rights Archives and Documentation: Meeting the Needs of Research, Teaching, Advocacy, and Social Justice.”  So, there won’t be any new posts until Monday.

But, there are lots of exciting things to write about, so check back for information on upcoming events, including the next Human Rights Film Series event (Tuesday, October 9), and the opening of a new human rights archival collection here at UConn!

Major Human Rights Events at UConn, October 1-4

The first week of October is jam-packed with Human Rights events at UConn!  Please join us for the following important events on campus!

All events are free and open to the public.

Monday, October 1, 2007

The Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights is being awarded on Monday, October 1 at 11 AM. Mental Disability Rights International and the Center for Justice and Accountability are this year’s recipients! The ceremony will take place in the plaza outside of the Dodd Research Center. (Rain location: Rome Ballroom, South Campus) Click here for more information.

Following the Thomas J. Dodd Prize for International Justice and Human Rights, the Dodd Research Center will host a special event including readings from the book, Letters from Nuremberg:  My Father’s Narrative of a Quest for Justice, by members of the Dodd family with a book signing by Senator Chris Dodd and Lary Bloom, on Monday, October 1 at 1:30pm in Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. 

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

On Tuesday, October 2 at 4 PM, Harold Koh, Dean of the Yale Law School, will give the Raymond & Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture, “Repairing Our Human Rights Reputation.” The talk will be held in Konover Auditorium of the Dodd Research Center.

Dean Koh is a leading expert on international law and a prominent advocate of human and civil rights. From 1998 to 2001, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.  Before joining Yale, he practiced law at Covington and Burling and at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice.  He has argued before the United States Supreme Court and testified before the U.S. Congress more than twenty times. He has been awarded ten honorary doctorates and two law school medals and has received more than twenty five awards for his human rights work. He is recipient of the 2005 Louis B. Sohn Award from the American Bar Association and the 2003 Wolfgang Friedmann Award from Columbia Law School for his lifetime achievements in International Law. He is author of eight books, including Transnational Legal Problems (with H. Steiner and D. Vagts) and The National Security Constitution, which won the American Political Science Association’s award as the best book on the American Presidency.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Lecture by Ela Gandhi (co-sponsored with the Asian American Studies Institute) at the Student Union Theatre, 4:30 pm.

Ela Ghandi, granddaughter of Mahatma Ghandi, has carried her family’s legacy and put those beliefs into practice for six decades of activism in South Africa.  During apartheid, she was banned from political activism and subjected to house arrest for nine years. In South Africa’s Parliament from 1994 to 2004, Ms. Gandhi aligned herself with the African National Congress party and represented the area of her birth in the KwaZulu Natal province near Durban. She founded the Gandhi Development Trust, developed a 24-hour program against domestic violence, and currently serves as Chancellor of Durban University of Technology. This event is free and open to the public, and sponsored by the Asian American Studies Institute, Asian American Cultural Center, Jain Center of Greater Hartford, Women’s Studies Program, Women’s Center, UNESCO Chair and Institute of Comparative Human Rights, India Studies Program, and the Department of History.

Morris Kight—One Man’s Road to the Gay Revolution and Beyond

Please join us for a talk by Mary Ann Cherry

Morris Kight—One Man’s Road to the Gay Revolution and Beyond

Friday, September 28, at 10 AM

Room 162, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Mary Ann Cherry, recipient of the Sigmund Strochlitz Travel Grant awarded by the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center to scholars conducting research in the Center’s unique collections, will read from her manuscript Morris Kight – The Authorized Biography of One Man’s Road to the Gay Revolution And Beyond on September 28, 10:00am, in Room 162 of the Dodd Center.  Cherry’s topic of study is the social activist and pacifist Morris Kight and his influence in the gay rights movement in the late1960s and early 1970s.  Through personal letters and records of the organizations that he helped to found, available in the Foster Gunnison Papers at the Dodd Center, as well as interviews conducted with his contemporaries, Cherry aims to explore the role of individual activists and the interplay of east coast and west coast organizations at a decisive time period in the movement’s evolution.  Questions and comments are welcome.  Refreshments will be served.

HOMER Issues and Where Else to Search

As many of you have noticed, UConn’s online library catalog, HOMER, has been having a number of issues lately.  We’re currently working to solve those problems.  One of the issues we’ve been having is that HOMER is not accurately reflecting the latest library holdings, and new additions to the library’s collections are not showing up in the catalog. 

Until we get HOMER back up and running 100%, there are a couple of other places that you can search for library holdings at UConn.

WorldCat is probably the best place to search, as it is a comprehensive listing of books, serials, films, and other items held in libraries around the world.  WorldCat’s listings are up to date, so if a recently acquired title doesn’t show up in HOMER, it will come up in WorldCat.  Once you’ve found an item in World Cat, if UConn doesn’t have it, you can request it via Inter Library Loan (ILL).

Another place to looks is ReQuest, a catalog of most public and publicly-funded academic libraries in Connecticut. 

Both WorldCat and ReQuest can be found on the library’s Research Database Locator, as well as on the list of Most Used Databases linked on the main library page

Hopefully, HOMER will be back up and running soon, but in the mean time, WorldCat and ReQuest are the best places to look. 

“Goodbye, Hungaria” Screening Today at UConn

Please join us this evening (Tuesday, September 18) at 6 PM for the opening night of UConn’s Human Rights Film Series.  We’ll be showing, Goodbye, Hungaria, which will be followed by a reception and Q and A with the filmaker and director, Jon Nealon.  The film will be shown in Konover Auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, and is free and open to the public. 

Hope to see you all then! 

UConn Libraries Celebrate Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month

As part of the library’s continuing commitment to diversity and in celebration of Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month from Sept. 15- October 15, the Curator of Hispanic Collections and I have created a new webpage with library and archival resources for Latino Studies, as well as upcoming events on campus at the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC) located on the 4th floor of the Student Union.

2007-2008 Human Rights Film Series: A Cinematic Exploration through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UConn wil be kicking off its annual Human Rights Film series next week! 

The first film is Goodbye, Hungaria, directed by Jon Nealon, which will be shown on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 6 PM in Konover Auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.  Director Jon Nealon will join us for a discussion and reception after the film. 

“Both political tale and love story, Goodbye Hungaria begins in a refugee camp in Hungary, home to hundreds of men, women and children fleeing war and oppression from every corner of the globe. To the refugees, Eastern Hungary is a cold and unwelcoming place; Asylum is rarely granted, and there are few opportunities for work.  For most, the only way out of this legal limbo is through a thriving underground smuggling ring. Jon Nealon’s cinema verité documentary chronicles the lives of Abed Al-Sahli a Palestinian refugee who acts as advocate and de facto translator for the camp’s Arab population, and Charu Newhouse, an American volunteer. As both Abed and Charu struggle to make life better for the refugees caught in red tape and subject to the vagaries of international politics, their fates become connected. The film traces their unlikely love story from the hopelessness of the camp to a dramatic arrival in New York City where they come to start a new life, together.”

For more information about the film series and other human rights events at UConn, go to http://www.humanrights.uconn.edu