Remembering Dorothy Allison
The Bingham Center mourns the loss of Dorothy Allison (1949-2024), who described herself as “a feminist, a working class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian.” Allison was most widely known for her novel Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), and is remembered in queer and feminist communities for her groundbreaking contributions to LGBTQ literature and publishing.
In the early 1990s Ginny Daley, then director of the Sallie Bingham Center, was convinced that Duke should acquire Dorothy Allison’s papers. “I saw her as the quintessential Southern writer,” Daley wrote. “Her personal papers and literary works fit well with Duke’s collections of Southern literature and women’s culture, while bringing fresh perspectives on queer culture and truth-telling to the mix.” This vision came to fruition in 2010 when Allison placed her papers at the Bingham Center.
At the time of the acquisition, Allison, a South Carolina native living in California, stated, "Now I feel that all that I saved is going to be safe and of use. Since we are entering high summer here with 90 degree temperatures and high risk of fire, I can also stop worrying that a wildfire might sweep through the redwoods and erase all that history. Safe and of use is infinitely preferable.”
Shortly after the papers arrived, Dr. Sharon Holland (then professor at Duke University, currently at UNC Chapel Hill) shared this memory which evokes the profound power of Allison's writing:
"I first encountered Dorothy Allison’s major work, Bastard Out of Carolina, on an overnight train (the Orient Express, no less) from Vienna to Paris. I wasn’t prepared for what would eventually happen in the book and when I got to the fateful scene in the car outside the hospital, I impulsively threw the book out of the window—it is still in a field somewhere along the train line. My reaction is a testament to the importance of the scene of violation that Allison wanted to construct for the reader—it was real, and sudden and devastating. I purchased the book upon my return to the United States and it has been one of my favorites since."
We were fortunate to celebrate the completion of processing the Dorothy Allison Papers in 2011 with an exhibit of materials from the collection, and a program featuring a lively conversation among Dorothy Allison, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Shirlette Ammons. Since that time many students and scholars have encountered her writing and activist work in our instruction sessions and reading room, through items such as bylaws from the Lesbian Sex Mafia.
Julie Enszer, editor of Sinister Wisdom, offers this tribute: "Now Dorothy Allison has joined the ancestors. I imagine her watching, waiting, scheming, dreaming, and conjuring what is next for lesbians, for feminists, for queers." We remain grateful to be the stewards of her papers as just one thread of her enormous legacy.
Header Image: Newsletter from Herstore Feminist Bookstore, Tallahassee, Florida, where Dorothy Allison was founding manager (1974-75), from the Dorothy Allison Papers.
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Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Photograph by H.A. Sedgwick.
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In February 2025, a large-scale exhibition of materials from the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Collection will open in the Mary Duke Biddle Room within Rubenstein Library. This exhibit explores the multifaceted ways in which the writings and artwork of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950 - 2009) bring queerness into life. Curator Katherine Carithers, Ph.D. candidate, Duke English Department, has selected objects which invite us to reflect on the many forms of queerness within and beyond Sedgwick’s work and the creative modes through which they’re expressed.
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“The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism: A Full Day Conference” poster (1987), Dorothy “Cookie” Teer Papers.
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2025-26 Research Travel Grant Program
Grant recipient Tessel Veneboer, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Literary Studies, Ghent University, recently shared an excerpt from a piece based on research using materials from the Cookie Teer Papers, including documents from a group called Women Against Sex. Read more in the post "Profiles in Research: Tessel Veneboer on Women Against Sex."
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The Gospel of Mary. Janus Press, 2006.
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Feminist Revolution / Revolucion Feminista, vol. 1, no. 1 , January 2020 to vol. 4, no. 3 2023. Astoria, NY: [Natalia Spiegel], 2020 - 2023. A complete run of this bilingual (English/Spanish) feminist zine, with articles and poetry focused on feminists around the world including women involved in armed struggle.
The Gospel of Mary. Janus Press. Newark, Vt: Janus Press, 2006. Translated from the Greek by Karen King with commentaries by Rosemary Radford Ruether with a central popup of "the journey of the soul" on a double-page pulp painted base sheet, by Claire van Vliet with Katie MacGregor. Woven binding by Audrey Holden, painted by Van Vliet and MacGregor; in clamshell box of birch trays by Richard Holmquist lined in DeWint by Holden. (pictured)
Morton, Willie H. How They Talk. One Thousand Misused Words and Idiomatic Expressions. Durham, North Carolina: The Seeman Printery, 1964. A dictionary of words and idioms, with an emphasis on African American speech. The author, a Black woman, was inspired to write the book while working as a schoolteacher on Chicago’s west side.
The Philadelphia Story: Another Experiment on Women. The Philadelphia Women's Health Collective and Friends, [1972]. A scarce account by the Philadelphia Women's Health Collective on their role in trying to assist 20 women who traveled from Chicago to Philadelphia for abortions.
McConnell, Dorothy. Women, War and Fascism. New York: The American League Against War and Fascism, 1935. A pamphlet on the exploitation of women workers under both fascism and democracy.
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“Estrogen Overdose,” by Anka Lanzon, published by Filipino zine publisher, Dumpling Press. Used for Writing 101: Voices Across Borders. From the Ailecia Ruscin Zine Collection.
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We led over a dozen instruction sessions during the fall 2024 semester, introducing undergraduate and graduate students to a wide range of women's history primary sources.
- Archives as Data
- Baldwin Scholars Senior Seminar
- Archives and Creative Process: Blues Women and Rosetta Records
- Liberating Archives: Remaking History Through the Arts
- Minor Utopias
- Political Economy of Care
- Representing Breast Cancer: Feminist Literature, Art, and Film
- ‘To Boldly Go!' Global Health and the Ethics of Engagement
- Voices Across Borders (Writing 101)
- When Fiction meets History
- Women Behaving Badly
- Writing Reproductive Justice (Writing 101)
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Happy 50th birthday to Charis Books and More, the South's oldest independent feminist bookstore! Laura Micham (Bingham Center director), E.R. Anderson (Charis Executive Director), Dartricia Rollins (former Charis Assistant Director), and Kelly Wooten (Bingham Center librarian) celebrate at Charis's golden anniversary in Atlanta, GA. The Bingham Center is home to the Charis Books and More archives.
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