What's on your reading list?
Why should we care about reading lists? Because they remain an important site of pedagogy & possibility: whose history matters, who gets to write about the past in the present, and how that collectively informs the futures we imagine (@Madjane_, 2021).
The dominance of scholars from the Global North is pervasive in academia, and this has a direct impact on student curricula. Institutions are starting to examine data on reading lists and it is clear that there are often significant imbalances in the diversity and representation of authors. This homogeneity has consequences for students’ thinking; limiting the methodological tools available to them, reinforcing dominant paradigms and curtailing academic potential.
The University of Sussex Law Department undertook a student-led evaluation of subject reading lists. Some of the recommendations around decolonising included:
- give consideration to the proportion of authors from underrepresented backgrounds
- consider where the narrative of the materials are centred
- ensure diverse materials are central to teaching (essential reading)
- consult a wide range of materials
- do not represent materials by authors from underrepresented backgrounds as 'other'
- engage with students about the choice of content
Module conveners and teaching staff should consult the Reading Lists Guide for further tips on best practice for making inclusive reading lists.
You can check out our reading lists on Anti-Racism and Black History and teaching collections as useful starting points. Further resources below.
Embedding decolonising practices into teaching
Many staff are committed to developing decolonised teaching and learning practices. Identifying approaches to translate theory into classroom practice can present a challenge. The Library can support teachers in the following ways:
- helping tutors identify and familiarise themselves with a wide range of resources, including resources that are freely available
- delivering training sessions for students
- develop digital learning resources for inclusion on a module's Canvas site.
Global Social Theory
This site is intended as a free resource for students, teachers, academics, and others interested in social theory and wishing to understand it in global perspective. It emerges from a long-standing concern with the parochiality of standard perspectives on social theory and seeks to provide an introduction to a variety of theorists and theories from around the world. The particular impetus for the setting up of the site was the recent campaign organised by students in the UK asking ‘Why is my curriculum white?‘ This site is one attempt to build resources that will hopefully complement and broaden our shared conversations in this area.
The site is being developed and resourced collaboratively and will be added to on a regular basis. It hopes to draw upon the knowledge and expertise of all those who read it and so, please, do get in touch and offer an entry on a topic, thinker, or concept that you think should be included at the email address below.
The site is organised by Gurminder K Bhambra with web design and support by Pat Lockley. For further information and a list of all contributors to the site, see the Contributors section.
Databases and Open Access Online Resources
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The African-American MosaicOnline database on African American history containing a number of primary sources.
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African American Newspapers, 1827-1998Search more than 270 African American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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African Newspapers 1800-192240 fully searchable African newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries. Featuring English- and foreign-language titles from Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
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Black Thought and CultureBlack Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history
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Colonial State PapersThousands of documents and bibliographic records concerning Britain's colonial relations with the Americas and other European rivals, the Caribbean and Atlantic world. Covers early American history, British colonial history, Caribbean history, maritime history, Atlantic trade, plantations, and slavery.
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History Vault: Creation of IsraelContains the British Foreign Office Political Correspondence files on Palestine and Transjordan, 1940-1948
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History Vault Includes multiple subcollections in broad subject areas like Civil Rights; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society and much moreProQuest History Vault unlocks the wealth of key archival materials with a single search. Researchers can access digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections.
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Independent VoicesA digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals from the special collections of academic institutions. Materials produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
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Race Relations in AmericaDocumenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Race Relations Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
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Shoah Foundation Visual History ArchiveContains a fully streaming video collection of more than 55,000 primary source testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.
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South Asia ArchiveThe South Asia Archive provides an extensive resource for students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences.
Focusing on South Asia, the Archive contains both serial and non-serial materials, including reports, rare books, and journal runs from noteworthy, rare publications. -
Southern Life and African American History, 1775–1915, Plantations RecordsProvides access to Plantation records concerning Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War
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African Education Research DatabaseAJOL is a Not for Profit Organisation providing online access to hundreds of research journals published in Africa. Journals published from developing countries are still largely excluded from the major, commercial indexing companies based in the developed Global North. It is often said, as a result, that African research is invisible, or that there is very little of it. Millions of AJOL website users from all over the world every month prove that this is not true.
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African Journals OnlineAfrican Journals OnLine (AJOL) is the world's largest and preeminent platform of African-published scholarly journals. AJOL is a Non-Profit Organisation that (since 1998) works to increase global & continental online access, awareness, quality & use of African-published, peer-reviewed research. Millions of monthly downloads by site users from nearly every country in the world are an indication of the need and widespread use of the AJOL initiative. More than half of the repeat users are from Africa.
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Asian Journals OnlineAsian Online Journals (AOJ) publishes scholarly and peer reviewed journals. The journals provide forum and encourages scientists, researchers, academics, engineers, and practitioners in all aspects to share their professional and academic knowledge in the fields computing, engineering, science humanities, social sciences, management, economics, medical science, and related disciplines. Asian Online Journals also aims to reach a large number of audiences worldwide with original and current research work completed on the vital issues of the above important disciplines. All the journals of AOJ adopt an open access model that rapidly disseminates an author's work worldwide and increases its impact. The journals permit all readers to view, download and print the full-text of all published articles without any subscription or restrictions.
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Black Women Radicals DatabaseThe Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) historizes and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders, the BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored in favor of Black and white cis-heteronormative male charismatic leadership, especially in the field of Black Politics. BWRD serves as a vehicle to center Black women’s historical political memory, scholarship, epistemologies, and leadership in socio-political movements that may not be taught in academia and in community and public spaces. The Database is free for educational use.
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SciELOSciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) is a bibliographic database, digital library, and cooperative electronic publishing model of open access journals. SciELO was created to meet the scientific communication needs of developing countries and provides an efficient way to increase visibility and access to scientific literature. Originally established in Brazil in 1997, today there are 16 countries in the SciELO network and its journal collections: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.