Critical Pedagogy and Feminist Scholarship in the Archives

abstract:This essay discusses a collaborative research project undertaken with students from Howard University through the UC-HBCU Initiative, examining the Ballitore Collection in the University of California, Santa Barbara Library's Special Research Collections. Centered on the writings of Irish Quaker Mary Leadbeater, the collection connects to questions of female authorship, abolition, and colonialism, and it highlights how the voices of women and enslaved people are often excluded from archives. Rachael Scarborough King argues that introducing diverse students to the traditionally white fields of book history and eighteenth-century studies produces new insights into questions around the historical study of race, gender, and religion.