As of June 30, I will be leaving my position as Curator for Human Rights Collections. As a result, this blog will be updated less frequently, though I am hoping that whoever replaces me will take it over.<\/p>\n
But before I go, I wanted to mention a couple of newly available digital collections here at UConn:<\/p>\n
For the past year, I\u2019ve been interviewing activists about their political advocacy work on issues impacting the LGBTQ community, including second-parent adoption, civil union, marriage equality, and equal protection under the law for gender identity and expression.\u00a0 These are all hugely important rights that set Connecticut apart from the vast majority of other states, which don\u2019t allow LGBTQ citizens the same rights and protections as heterosexual citizens. Looking around the state, it didn\u2019t seem that many libraries and archives were actively trying to document these very recent\u2013 and in some ways still ongoing\u2013 social movements.\u00a0 And so, with support and encouragement from my institution, I set out to do so.<\/p>\n
In 2010, the University of Connecticut Libraries began actively collecting documentation of activism around the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, and neighboring areas, and received donations of research files and materials from Mia Farrow, Eric Reeves, and others.\u00a0 It was Ms. Farrow\u2019s vision to create an online documentation center of these materials so access would not be limited to only those who could travel to Connecticut. Working in consultation with Ms. Farrow, and also with Dr. Bridget Conley-Zilkic at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, the project was launched in June 2011.<\/p>\n
The website<\/a> contains information about the Sudan related archival collections at the Thomas\u00a0J. Dodd Research Center at UConn, as well as a research guide for Sudan, links to news\u00a0sources, and\u00a0advocacy and humanitarian organizations working in the region.\u00a0 The project also includes an online gallery of digital photographs from Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic from various refugee and IDP camps<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to the UNHCR, there are approximately 4.5 million internally displaced people in Sudan, and hundreds of thousands more in camps in neighboring countries.<\/a>\u00a0 There are just over 200 images in the collection, most of which were taken by the incredible Mia Farrow, who has devoted the past 7 years to using her voice and celebrity to raise awareness of the horrific violence in Darfur and neighboring areas, which tragically is ongoing to this day.\u00a0 It has been my utter privilege to work with her this past year on the project, and I could not be more in awe of her tireless dedication to the people of Darfur.<\/p>\n All the best, and thanks for reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As of June 30, I will be leaving my position as Curator for Human Rights Collections. As a result, this blog will be updated less frequently, though I am hoping that whoever replaces me will take it over. But before … Continue reading