We are looking forward to having a great discussion facilitated by Kristyn Caragher, centered around Julia Glassman’s article Stop Speaking For Us: Women-of-Color Bloggers, White Appropriation, and What Librarians Can Do About It. Our meeting will take place in GSLIS 131 from 4:00-5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 15th, and will be available virtually at http://go.illinois.edu/gslis_meeting. Kristyn has kindly provided the following discussion questions as a stepping stone for conversation. Feel free to join in the discussion in this space, and we hope you will be able to join us shortly!

Moving towards a common context: general questions

1)      Why have women of color turned towards autonomous publishing as a means of creating spaces for their voices?

2)      What is the difference between plagiarism and appropriation? Why is this distinction important to make, and in particular in the context of the case studies?

3)      What does it mean to render a woman of color blogger invisible? What’s happening in the case studies?

The Case Studies:

Immigration in Feminism

1) What implications can we draw from the appropriation of Brownfemipower’s work and the feminist community’s response to the allegation?

Radical Love

1)      How does the appropriated definition of radical love differ from the original?

2)      What does the author cite as the most illuminating aspect of the incident in relation to library and information science?

Kyriarchy

1)      What is kyriarchy? What spurred the introduction of this term?

2)      Why is Hodgson’s response to Factora-Borchers inappropriate?

What Librarians Can Do About It

1)      Why is collecting and preserving radical women of colors blogs especially pertinent today?  What reasons does Glassman cite?

2)      What are the author’s recommendations for establishing blog collections? What other recommendations do you have?