Digitizing the Women's Liberation Movement: A Conversation with Movement Leader Alix Kates Shulman

This program will give insight both to the women's liberation movement and to the life cycle of a digital project, discussing how "Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement: An On-line Archival Collection," created in 1997, became one of Duke Libraries' most popular digital collections. Alix Kates Shulman will reflect on her experiences as a feminist activist and writer during the 1960s and 70s, including the 1968 Miss America pageant protest, the iconic event that launched the myth of bra burning and the women's movement in the popular consciousness. Molly Bragg, Digital Collections Project Coordinator, will share a behind-the-scenes perspective on how digital projects are proposed and how they magically appear online, and Kelly Wooten, librarian with the Sallie Bingham Center, will share the process of stewarding permissions for this project and other challenges. Alix Kates Shulman is the celebrated author of fourteen books, including the New York Times bestselling novel Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, which established her as a primary figure in feminism's second wave. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Shulman studied philosophy at Columbia University and received an MA at New York University. She became a political activist, joining the Congress of Racial Equality in 1961 and the Women's Liberation Movement in 1967. Shulman lives in Manhattan and continues to speak frequently on issues such as writing, feminism, and reproductive choice.