Our project was inspired by the Consortium of Independent Colleges (CIC) “Humanities Research for the Public Good” grant, which has the following goal: “By making visible the significant collections contained in college archives, libraries, and museums, the project aims to show how these raw materials of humanities research can address the concerns and experiences of local communities." We responded by engaging three local communities with one another—Saint Mary’s College students/faculty, South Bend/Michiana residents, and the Congregation of the Sisters the Holy Cross. (Read more)
Many of us are familiar with reading on a screen — we read books, newspapers, magazines, and more. Sometime in the near future, it will be possible to read early manuscripts dating back to 1200 AD in a digital archive thanks to the ambition of a Saint Mary’s faculty member.
Sarah Noonan, PhD, assistant professor of English, is leading this effort as co-principal investigator on a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources....(Read more)
Tucked away in a box within the Archives of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Bertrand Hall on the campus of Saint Mary's College, there rests an unassuming book. Inside this volume, in early 1980, a group of eight Cambodian refugees documented their experiences during the time when the Khmer Rouge was in power. (Read more)
This IRB-approved oral history project provides knowledge about the lived experiences of 20 transgender people and LGBTQ allies who are neither born on nor flock to the coasts but instead remain in their hometowns in mid America. The project reveals the challenges of living as transgender in middle America in addition to the agency, resilience and strength of transgender people who find community in ingenious ways, from a veteran support group to a Mennonite church to roller derby to drag king communities. The project builds on the continual subverting of the narrative about the Midwest as the nation's closet for LGBTQ people. (Read more)
A disenfranchised group intervenes to stop a war by striking and protest. In Aristophanes's play, this group was women, who used their religious and domestic roles, a sex-strike, and protests to bring opposing sides to the bargaining table. A timely play for considering the influence of protest in creating political and social change. Excellent companion pieces would include news coverage of sex-strikes around the world and of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, and Spike Lee's film, Chiraq. (Read more)