Corbin, Nicola A., William A. Smith, and J. Roberto Garcia. “Trapped between justified anger and being the strong Black woman: Black college women coping with racial battle fatigue at historically and predominantly White institutions” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 31, no. 7, 2018 p. 626-643, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2018.1468045

“This paper explores the psychological tensions and silencing that Black college women as they navigate social constructions of their selfhood under a White gaze.” Through this study, which provides first-hand accounts of Black women’s experiences at PWIs, I will be able to make assumptions about what sorts of experiences Black women might have been having at Colorado College in the 1990s. By learning more about the concept of “racial battle fatigue” I may be able to imagine the reasons why Black women were not appearing in images of white social spaces.

What is Sense of Place?

Cross, Jennifer E. “What is Sense of Place?” 12th Headwaters Conference Western State College, November 2-4, 2001.

This article sets up a framework for understanding different “relationships to place” through the stories of people living in Nevada County, California. I will be using the frameworks included in this article to analyze the relationships that Black women may have formed to Colorado College in the 1990s by applying the frameworks to items found in the CC archive. I will also be layering these frameworks with existing studies/theories about the experiences of Black women at PWIs.

“Our Leaders Are Just We Ourself”: Black Women College Student Leaders’ Experiences With Oppression and Sources of Nourishment on a Predominantly White College Campus

Domingue, Andrea D. “‘Our Leaders Are Just We Ourself’: Black Women College Student Leaders’ Experiences With Oppression and Sources of Nourishment on a Predominantly White College Campus” Equity & Excellence in Education, vol. 48 no. 3, p. 454-472, 2015 DOI: 10.1080/10665684.2015.1056713

This article focuses on Black women in leadership positions at PWIs. The author grounds her theoretical framework on contemporary Black women’s leadership through a study in which “Participants reported interpersonal interactions with oppression, more specifically: stereotypes, microaggressions, racialized and gendered self-presentation expectations, along with negotiating voice and silencing.” This will assist me with understanding the potential experiences of the Black women leaders who are pictured in the school’s yearbooks.

A loophole of retreat? Predominately White institutions as paradoxical spaces for high achieving African American women

Haynes, Christina S. “A loophole of retreat? Predominately White institutions as paradoxical spaces for high achieving African American women,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 32 no. 8, p. 998-1018, 2019 DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2019.1635281

This article uses “Black feminist geographic theory” to examine and expose the ways in which PWIs can function as paradoxical spaces in Black women’s lives— ones in which they “relish in the challenges of their intellectual pursuits” but also “also deal with intense feelings of isolation and frustration.” This article, and the institution where the study took place, can be easily mapped onto Colorado College and therefore the experiences of Black women at the institution as well.

There’s no place like home? African American women in the residence halls of a predominantly white Midwestern University

Haynes, Christina S. “There’s no place like home? African American women in the residence halls of a predominantly white Midwestern University” Gender and Education, vol. 31 no. 4, p. 525-542, 2019 DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2018.1484430

This article aims to address the absence of scholarship on the experiences that Black women have in the “social spaces” of PWI’s. Through this examination, the author hopes to bring the circumstances that result in isolation and avoidance to light. This article will be helpful to me because it will aid in my analysis of the residence hall photos that were included in the yearbooks of the 1990s. This article’s additional focus on nourishment also provides a starting point for understanding what moments of beauty may have looked like for these women.

belonging: a culture of place

hooks, bell. Belonging: a Culture of Place. Routledge, 2009.

This book explores and complicates notions of relationship to place as hooks examines her own relationship to her home-state, Kentucky, through a series of essays. “belonging: a culture of place” encourages a reconsidering of relationship to place through reflection and the documentation of memory. With the help of this book, I will be able to problematize the assumptions that I am making about the experiences Black women have had at Colorado College. Specifically, this work allows for a duality in relationship to place– one that allows for spaces to be sites of both trauma and healing.

Black Women Students at Predominantly White Universities: Narratives of Identity Politics, Well-Being and Leadership Mobility

Hotchkins, Bryan. “Black Women Students at Predominantly White Universities: Narratives of Identity Politics, Well-Being and Leadership Mobility,” NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, vol. 10 no. 2, p. 144-155, 2017 DOI: 10.1080/19407882.2017.1326943

This article is important to my project because it brings up the concept of “gendernoir racial battle fatigue” which I have not encountered outside of this text. It combines frameworks of understanding trauma that are mentioned in some of the other readings. Through this combined framework, I will be better able to understand the experiences of Black women.

A Small Place

Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.

This book really complicates the idea of “relationship to place” through the lens of the descendant of an enslaved person and that of a foreign white tourist/colonizer. Through this text, I will be able to consider the “relationships to place” mentioned in Cross’s works through the perspective of an author who cannot wholly feel one way or another due to her complicated relationship with the country’s past/present. I will also attempt to see beyond the narrative CC was creating for itself and into the lives of the Black women who attended the college.

Venus in Two Acts

Hartman, Saidiya. “Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe, vol. 12 no. 2, 2008, p. 1-14. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/241115.

This article addresses the absence of Black women in archival materials from the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Hartman speaks to the “impossibility of discovering anything about [Venus] that hasn’t already been stated.” The essay may have begun with the aims of deconstructing a silence in the archive, but it exists as a close examination of the circumstances that result/ed in the silencing of Black women in the archive. I will be using this text to aid in my thinking about how Black women were silenced in CC’s yearbooks and newspapers.

Black Women’s Socialization and Identity Development in College: Advancing Black Feminist Thought

Porter, Christa J., Qiana Green, Michael Daniels, and Mary Smola. “Black Women’s Socialization and Identity Development in College: Advancing Black Feminist Thought,” Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 2019 DOI: 10.1080/19496591.2019.1683021

This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding the processes of socialization and identity development for Black women who are in college. The authors are expanding on an existing model of identity development with the purpose of broadening the field of Black Feminist Thought. I will be using this article to further my understandings/analyses of the experience of existing in social spaces while in college.

Citizen

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: an American Lyric. Penguin, 2015.

This book offers an opportunity to imagine how Black voices might appear in an archive of their own creation. While it might not be a space for direct citation, it will likely function as one of inspiration. If possible, I will consider some of the formatting decisions that were made in this book for my own website.

Silencing the Past

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Beacon Press, 2015.

This text provides a framework for rethinking the way history is discussed/perceived/theorized. In this book, Trouillot introduces the concept of “silences” in the archive. Through his framework, it becomes clear that all creation of “history” involves the creation of silences. I will be using this work to explore the ways in which the creation of history through yearbooks resulted in the silencing of Black women.

Navigating the Academy: An Autoethnographic Approach to Examining the Lived Experience of African American Women at Predominantly White Institutions of Higher Education

Warren-Gordon, K., & Mayes, R. D. “Navigating the Academy: An Autoethnographic Approach to Examining the Lived Experience of African American Women at Predominantly White Institutions of Higher Education.” The Qualitative Report, vol. 22 no. 9, p. 2356-2366 2017. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol22/iss9/5

This article focuses on two Black women who worked for PWIs, while my project will be focusing exclusively on students who attended PWIs. In spite of that, this article still has value in that it highlights a specific approach to examining the experiences of Black women. The article concludes with the idea that mentorship can improve experiences for Black women at PWIs. That begs the question, how many Black women were pictured among the CC faculty in the 1990s? What was the potential for mentorship?