In July we were very happy to host the winners of the newly-created LGBT Visiting Scholars Program. Thanks to the program, each year the Library will appoint up to three Martin Duberman Visiting Scholars who will be provided with stipends to travel to New York City to conduct LGBT studies research in the Library’s collections. The fellowship is targeted to emerging scholars—those without permanent academic appointments. The fellowship has been generously supported by LGBT Committee Ambassador and eminent historian Martin Duberman and his partner Eli Zal. At the end of July, the winners met with Martin Duberman for lunch to discuss their research.  Above is a snapshot from the lunch, from left to right: Jason Baumann; Martin Duberman Visiting Scholars Whitney Strub, Jason Ezell, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs; Steven Fullwood; and Martin Duberman.

Jason Ezell researched Martin Duberman’s papers to explore his experience writing about Black Mountain College, an experimental school that operated from 1933 to 1957 near Asheville, North Carolina. His project will explore what drew Duberman to write Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community (1972), and the role of history in the formation of queer communities. He eventually hopes to incorporate the research into a larger book length project tentatively titled Down There: Coming Into Queer Imagination in the American South. 

Alexis Pauline Gumbs pursued research for her doctoral dissertation, “We Can Learn to Mother Ourselves: The Queer Survival of Black Feminism.” Ms. Gumbs, a PhD candidate in English, Africana Studies and Women’s Studies at Duke University, investigated the publishing and poetics of Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Barbara Smith, and Alexis De Veaux at the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Whitney Strub, an Assistant Professor in the American Studies, Women’s Studies and LGBT Studies Programs at Temple University, continued research on a forthcoming book for Columbia University Press, Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Obscenity and Pornography in the Postwar United States.  He focused on the collections of several HIV/AIDS groups to explore how activist organizations dealt with attacks and restrictions on safe-sex educational materials, as well as the historical periodicals in the Library’s  International Gay Information Center Archive.For more information about the LGBT Visiting Scholars Program at the New York Public Library, please contact Jason Baumann at jbaumann@nypl.org. 

The New York Public Library is pleased to announce the creation of the LGBT Visiting Scholars Program thanks to the generous support of LGBT Committee Ambassador Martin Duberman and his partner Eli Zal. Each year the Library will provide stipends for up to three Martin Duberman Visiting Scholars. The stipends will support travel to New York City and related expenses to do LGBT studies research in the Library’s collections. The travel grants awarded will range from $1,000 to $8,500. The awards will be limited to emerging scholars—those without permanent academic appointments—or those who are unaffiliated with an academic institution. Martin Duberman Visiting Scholars will also be provided with temporary workspace at the Library to pursue their research. Recipients must supply a written summary of their findings upon completion of their work.

The LGBT collections of the New York Public Library are among the greatest in the country. The collections include the archives of pioneering LGBT activists such as Morty Manford, Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen; the papers of scholars such as Martin Duberman, Jonathan Ned Katz, and Karla Jay; organizational archives of pivotal civil rights groups such as the Mattachine Society of New York and Gay Activist Alliance; and the papers of LGBT writers such as W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, and Joseph Beam. The Library is also home to major archives in the history of the AIDS crisis, such as ACT UP New York and GMHC. The Library has extensive holdings in the history of LGBT theatre, such as the archives of Charles Ludlam. It is also home to the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive, a project to document the history of LGBT African Americans. This is supported by extensive book and periodical holdings in LGBT studies.

Interested applicants should send a 3-5 page research proposal specifying the collections at the Library relevant to their project, a draft budget and itinerary for their trip, a CV, and an appropriate letter of recommendation. Applications should be sent to Jason Baumann, The New York Public Library, 11 West 40th Street, South Court 3, New York NY 10018. Applications must be received by January 31, 2009. Notice of awards will be sent beginning March 1, 2009. Recipients must make their trip within the year of 2009.

If you have any questions about the program or the Library’s collections, please email Jason Baumann, Coordinator of Collection Assessment and LGBT Collections, jbaumann@nypl.org.