Campus Meaningful Reads, a project supported by the UW Tacoma Library, highlights the texts — books, articles, or creative writings — that have been meaningful to members of our campus community. It’s an event that provides the opportunity to grow spaces where students see their voices represented next to staff and faculty, and to understand how scholarship and creative outputs have impacted us in our lives.
This week we are featuring the meaningful reads of Nicole Blair and Layne Gonzales!
Nicole Blair recommends the book:
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
The summer I turned 22, I had just completed my first year of graduate school at the University of Southern Mississippi. In early June of that year, I travelled to England to study the Arthurian Legend and the Bloomsbury Group for six weeks. Although I was well-acquainted with stories of King Arthur, I had never heard of the Bloomsbury Group or of one of its most famous members, Virginia Woolf, author of such books as Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One’s Own. When she wrote these books, I don’t think she had any inkling of the impact her words would have on generations of women around the world, let alone a young woman from Mississippi. Each of her novels is a revelation, of course, but A Room of One’s Own is a manifesto of female power, written by a woman who knew firsthand the ways in which the world can try to deny a woman access to the fruits of that power. Although Woolf could not overcome the mental illness to which she succumbed in 1941, her greatest strength lay in staying true to the conviction that women could achieve any goal they wished. I grew up in a religious household, taught that when God created mankind, he gave breath to Adam first, and that Eve had been created as a gift to him because he needed a companion. We were instructed also that when Eve ate The Apple and then tempted her mate to do the same, humankind was forever cursed. Shame on Eve, yes? “Women should be seen and not heard” was the message I received as a child. When I read A Room of One’s Own that summer, though, I experienced a shock of recognition, much like the one Woolf describes as a “moment of being,” that a female was not secondary to a male in any way, shape, or form, that given the same opportunities as a male, a female can shape her own life. When the beadle at the men’s college, Oxbridge, chases the narrator (“Mary Beton, Mary Seton. . .”) out of the fellow’s garden and locks the gate, she feels indignant. If that wasn’t enough of an insult, she could find nothing of substance about women in the prestigious library that, as it turns out, was also out of bounds to women. In her defense, Woolf wrote that “Literature is open to everybody. I refuse to allow you, Beadle though you are, to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” I took that pronouncement to heart. Reading A Room of One’s Own at age 22 was a serendipitous moment that changed not only the direction of my academic career but of my entire life.”
Find A Room of One’s Own in the UW Libraries
Layne Gonzales recommends the book:
Ice Massacre by Tiana Warner
Growing up I was obsessed with mermaids. I wanted to consume every piece of media that featured mermaids and I wanted to one day be a mermaid. But, it wasn’t until I read “Ice Massacre” that I saw queer identities shown in a story about mermaids. The story is gritty and intense, but seeing a group of strong girls with unapologetically queer identities was amazing. As a queer person myself, I wish that there were more books like this when I was younger. I hope that more fantasy stories like this can feature queer people as heroes.”
While we’re working to add this to our collection in the UW Libraries, you still check out Ice Massacre through one of our worldwide partners. Need help? Ask us how!
Thank you for sharing, Nicole and Layne!
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