Hankins, Rebecca
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This collection contains papers and other research self-archived by Rebecca Hankins, Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University.
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Item LGBTQ+ History and Collections brochure(Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, TAMU, 2018-06-26) Hankins, Rebecca; Reibenspies, Jennifer M.; Marini, Francesca, Ph.D.; Bailey, Gregory; Jackson, Michael; Anderson, Hillary, Ph.D.The brochure includes both collections and a chart of the LGBTQ historical events at Texas A&M University. The timeline was developed by Dr. Hillary A. Anderson as she processed the LGBTQ Archives in Cushing. The timeline is an ongoing work in progress. Recent updates are due to the extensive research of graduate student Josh Howell. The front cover represents some select collections housed in Cushing Memorial Library & Archives. The collections include extensive correspondence, letters, memos, photographs, newspapers, books, journals, serials, manuscripts, documents, and a chronology of TAMU’s LGBTQ history. All of these resources can be accessed in Cushing's Reading Room.Item Are We Having Fun Yet(Texas Digital Humanities Consortium, 2016-05-27) Hankins, Rebecca; Potvin, Sarah; Earhart, Amy; Ives, MauraThis presentation was the basis for discussing, surfacing, and sharing best practices for establishing and evolving collaborations among digital scholars. We sought to engage the audience in discussing what factors to consider when dealing with multiple faculty and students, an issue that can become thorny, particularly as projects change and grow, despite good intentions. How do we properly credit any work that is done to publicize or publish these multidisciplinary projects that universities and funding agencies are encouraging and oftentimes are requiring academics to secure in order to receive shrinking dollars?Item A Catalyst for Social Activism: The Digital Black Bibliography Project(Texas Digital Libraries, 2016-05-26) Hankins, Rebecca; Earhart, Amy; Ives, Maura; Potvin, SarahThis ppt presentation details a collaborative proof of concept project called Digital Black Bibliography (DiBB) that sought to provide scholars with the tools to compile, preserve, manipulate, and interpret Africana cultural history as represented in seminal black historical bibliography texts. The project objectives were to transform printed bibliographies into more granular data that scholars could use to search, analyze, and expand the understanding of bibliographies. The works used in the project were of two seminal bibliographers, Prof. Dorothy Porter Wesley's A Catalogue of The African Collection and Prof. Abdul Alkalimat (Gerald McWhorter)'s Afro-Scholar newsletters.Item Deep in the Heart of Texzines(2019-05-14) Brett, Jeremy; Hankins, RebeccaThis poster highlights some of the more graphically and thematically interesting zines in the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives Zine collection as well as the RaceRiot! speakers who shared their passionate opinions and views with us via photographs, twitter feeds, and video. This poster will show how zines in the library and archival collections can be used as an effective medium for giving a voice to the joys, concerns, and beliefs of outsider cultures and communities.Item I Am Not My Hair: Reclaiming Black Beauty(2019-05-01) Hankins, Rebecca; Hankins, SalimahThis poster explores the hairstyles and hair stories of Black women in America. The images follow a historical chronology from the legacy of slavery to these contemporary times. Black women have both struggled to conform to and at times to reject the traditional Eurocentric definitions of beauty. From the early 1900s to the 1950s, we see a shift from headscarves and natural hair (typically worn by former slaves and sharecroppers) to chemical straighteners. In the 1960s and 70s, the Afro became a symbol for the Black Power Movement and the “Black is beautiful” mantra. The 1980s and 90s represented a backlash and rejection of the Afro that was considered revolutionary and confrontational; we witnessed a return to the hairstyles of the early 20th century, with relaxers, wigs, and jheri curls. And finally, the 2000s to the present have ushered in an “anything goes” attitude and the democratization of media, through Facebook, natural hair websites, and Youtube tutorials have encouraged many Black women to reclaim their natural hair. Currently, Black women are using a variety of means of constructing identities that challenge the definitions of who and what is beautiful to ultimately proclaim, “we are more than our hair.”Item Reel Muslim Women: The Depiction of Muslim Women on Film and TV(2019-05-01) Hankins, RebeccaThis poster explores the depiction of Muslim women in film and on television. Hollywood has often portrayed Muslim women as angry, insensitive mothers, sisters, and daughters in dramas such as The Bodyguard and American Sniper to what we see now as much more representations of more empowered, intelligent, and independent roles in such shows as Grey’s Anatomy and Mooz-Lum, and American Crime.Item Documenting Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and One Family's Saga(New York University Press, 2016-03) Hankins, Rebecca; Anokye, Akua DukuOn August 29, 2005 the world witnessed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina as it swept through New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi; a natural disaster that will forever be linked to the images of suffering and neglect wrought on citizens of the United States. This essay relates the story of the Hankins family’s survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The family of brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, children, and friends, communicate through oral narratives and personal photos the stories that detail their recovery and triumph over the psychological and emotional trauma of what has been called “one of this nation’s worst natural disasters.”Item Uncovering Black Feminist Writers 1963-90: An Evaluation of Their Coverage in Research Tools(American Library Association, Reference & User Services Quarterly, 2009-03) Hankins, RebeccaHas the move toward online resources had an effect on source material for the study of black feminist theory? The last forty years have witnessed a critical mass of literary and theoretical writings on the black feminist movement. This article evaluates the coverage of writings by a select group of forty "second wave" (1963-75) and pre -- "third wave" (1976-90) black feminists in twelve major electronic-literary and women's-studies indexing and abstracting services.Item The Peculiar Institution: The Depiction of Slavery in Steven Barnes’s Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart(Lexington Books, 2016-03-11) Hankins, RebeccaSteven Barnes’s Lion’s Blood (2002) and its sequel Zulu Heart (2003) combine Africa, Islam and Muslims to show positive and negative sides of what would have happened if whites were the enslaved and blacks were the slave owners in an alternative North America, a divided country called Bilalstan tenuously ruled by African Muslims, Zulus, Arabs, Aztecs, Vikings and Indians. Barnes two central characters, one a Muslim slave owner, Kai ibn Rashid and one an Irish slave boy, Aidan O’Dere who through the development of their friendship, challenge the system of slavery. Subplots include romance, political intrigue, and Sufi mysticism. Philosophical discussions on martial arts, religion, family and power are interwoven throughout these stories.Item Racial Realism or Foolish Optimism: An African American Muslim Woman in the Field(Library Juice Press, 2016-01-21) Hankins, RebeccaThis essay discusses a number of identity issues related to what people of color experience in American society, with a particular focus on Derrick Bell's concept of racial realism. The essay looks at Bell's theory as it informs the author's identity as an African American Muslim woman and her work as an archivist and librarian at an academic institution. Although this concept could be considered very pessimistic, the paper discusses how Bell's work actually permits people of color the freedom to work from a platform of self-empowerment.Item Bibliography on Black Women's Hair Research(2014-11-02) Hankins, Rebecca; Hankins, RebeccaA selected listing of resources for the study of or research on Black women's hairItem Fictional Islam: A Literary Review and Comparative Essay on Islam in Science Fiction and Fantasy(Essex, England : North East London Polytechnic, 2010-01-07) Hankins, RebeccaItem Countering the Master Narrative: Muslims and Islam in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Comics(2010-04-15) Hankins, Rebecca; Hankins, RebeccaItem Art in Special Collections: Latino and African American Fine Art and Photography Collections in Academic Institutions(Art Libraries Society of North America, 2010-05-15) Hankins, Rebecca; Juarez, MiguelOften university libraries or archive/special collections house large fine art and photographic collections by African American and Latino artists. These collections are frequently hidden due to inadequate funding to promote them, minimal exhibit space, insufficient staffing with requisite exhibition and curatorial expertise, and/or diminished cataloging or digital priority. This article seeks to address the concerns and issues that affect this lack of exposure within academic special collections in both large and small institutions. The intent is to highlight successful strategies that can be used by other repositories seeking to diversify their art and photography holdings.Item Meeting Our Users Where They Conference: A Texas A&M Model to Support Librarian Attendance at Subject-Specific Conferences(Public Services Quarterly, 2009-04-01) Seeger, Christina; Wan, Gary; Hankins, Rebecca; Melgoza, PaulineToday’s academic librarian is frequently called upon to function as a subject specialist, with or without advanced degrees in other disciplines. One method of monitoring trends within a given field is to study its literature; another is to attend conferences in the discipline. Discipline-specific conference attendance by academic librarians provides opportunities to interact with faculty in their disciplines that result in an increased communication with faculty, improved reference expertise, and more focused collection development. This paper describes the Texas A&M University Libraries’ support for conference attendance and examples of the resulting benefits.Item Oral History, Civil Rights and the Archival Role(Dr. Clyde Robertson; New Orleans Public Schools, 2004-07-19) Hankins, RebeccaThe years 2003 to 2006 will witness the anniversaries of many of the events that represent the Modern Civil Rights Movement. With the 50th anniversary celebration of the historic Brown v Board decision, the court order to desegregate the Boston Public schools in 1974 and the ensuing convulsions it caused. Couple with this the city of Birmingham, Alabama having experienced its most violent period of civil right activities during the 1950s and 60s, which many of those organizations and institutions in Birmingham will be commemorating from 2004 to 2006. The March on Washington and the 100th anniversary of the publication of W.E.B. DuBois’s Souls of Black Folks behind us, this is an appropriate subject for our series. This issue of Africa Rising will chronicle how those professionals called archivist, charged with collecting, preserving, and making these important resources available to the public, view their role in this endeavor. This issue will show how oral histories have become a central component in the ongoing struggle to document, revise, and append the stories of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.Item Oral Tradition in Historical Research(International Oral History Association Proceedings, 2004-06) Hankins, RebeccaThis article will chronicle how those professionals called archivist, charged with collecting, preserving, and making primary source materials including oral history resources available to the public, view their role in this endeavor. This article will show how oral histories have become a central component in the ongoing struggle to document, revise, and append the stories of African American history and the Modern Civil Rights Movement.