Guide to the Ann duCille papers, 1965-2020


John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Published in 2024

Collection Overview

Title: Ann duCille papers
Date range: 1965-2020
Creator: DuCille, Ann
Extent: 2.25 linear foot
(1 record center carton, 2 file boxes, 1 half file box, 1 oversize folder, and 1 slide box)
Abstract: This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Ann duCille, Professor of English, Emerita at Wesleyan University and Inaugural Distinguished Professor in Residence for the Black Feminist Theory Project at the Pembroke Center, Brown University. DuCille is a scholar of African-American literature, cultural studies, and Black feminist theory. Materials include personal and professional correspondence, draft writings, dissertation proposals, awards and honors, and conference materials dating from 1965-2020.
Language of materials: English
Repository: John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number: Ms.2016.013

Scope & content

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Ann duCille, Professor of English, Emerita at Wesleyan University and Inaugural Distinguished Professor in Residence for the Black Feminist Theory Project at the Pembroke Center, Brown University. DuCille is a scholar of African-American literature, cultural studies, and Black feminist theory.

Materials include personal and professional correspondence, draft writings, dissertation proposals, awards and honors, and conference materials. This collection dates from 1965-2020 and is arranged into one series, alphabetically by record type then topic.

Although the processor created the arrangement, where possible, original folder titles have been maintained and appear in quotation marks; the processor created the remaining folder titles. There is one folder of restricted material (2.15) that contains student records and personal identifying information that is closed until January 1, 2074, after which date materials will open without restriction.

Access Points

Subject Organizations Subject Topics

Arrangement

The Ann duCille papers are arranged alphabetically by record type, then topic into 1 series. Exceptions include The Coupling Convenion and Skin Trade material that is arranged by title.

Biographical / Historical

Ann duCille is Professor of English, Emerita at Wesleyan University who is a scholar of African-American literature, cultural studies, and Black feminist theory. Born in Brooklyn, NY, duCIlle earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bridgewater State College and then a Master's degree and PhD in English from Brown University.

DuCille began her career at Hamilton College in 1974 where she and two others became the first three Black women faculty on staff (see folder #2.16 for more information about duCille's experience at Hamilton College). In 1990, duCille joined the faculty of Wesleyan University and later also worked at the University of California, San Diego. In 2016, duCille became the Inaugural Distinguished Professor in Residence for the Black Feminist Theory Project at the Pembroke Center, Brown University. DuCille currently serves as an advisor to that project, which is a visiting scholar initiative that invites black feminist theorist to campus each year. She is also a curatorial advisor to the Pembroke Center's Feminist Theory Archive in regard to the papers of black feminist theorists.

DuCille's scholarship pertains to African-American literary and cultural studies and investigates popular culture and brand marketing, specifically the ways by which they influence perceptions of and discriminatory practices against races, genders, and identities. She rigorously interrogates concepts of self, otherness, and the American academy. Her publications include The Coupling Convention: Sex,Text, and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction (1993) and Skin Trade (1996).

Access & Use

Access to the collection: There are no restrictions on access for analog materials, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested. Advance notice is required to view any audiovisual media or born-digital records that may exist in this collection. Audiovisual media and born-digital records in this collection may not have been reformatted yet. Researchers may request access to copies by contacting the John Hay Library with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. Access to original physical audiovisual or born-digital media is restricted.
Use of the materials: All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the John Hay Library are requested to complete a Notice of Intent to Publish, available on the John Hay Library website or by request, prior to reproducing, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Preferred citation: Ann duCille papers, MS.2016.013, Box [#], Folder [#], Pembroke Center Archives, John Hay Library, Brown University.
Contact information: John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION  
Acquisition: Gift of Ann duCille in 2015 and 2023.
Processing information: This collection was part of the Pembroke Center's Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive until 2024 when collections were recataloged. All collections previously grouped under that title are now searchable under the subject headings "Women and Gender at Brown University" or "Feminist Activism in Rhode Island."
ABOUT THE FINDING AID  
Author: Amanda Knox, Marcus Mamourian, and Mary Murphy on behalf of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women and the Brown University Library.
Encoding: This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-10-09.
Descriptive rules: Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Sponsor: Curatorial work provided by Mary O. Murphy on behalf of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women and the Brown University Library.

Additional Information

Inventory


Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 1 Articles about duCille
1977, 1978, 1993, 1997
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 1 Articles about Ann duCille; includes book reviews
1994-2006
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 2 Articles by Ann duCille
1990-2010
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 2 Articles by duCille
1993, 2000, 2009, n.d.
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 3 Awards and honors
1986-2008
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 4 Awards and honors: Black Achivement Award from the Black Women's Collective
2001
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 5 Awards and honors: black scholarship award from the University of Massachusetts, Boston
1993
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 6 Awards and honors: honorary degree from Wesleyan University
2000
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 1 Book cover proof and review: Technicolored: Reflections on Race in the time of TV
English.
circa 2018-2020
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 7 Book covers: Skin Trade
English.
n.d.
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 8 Book details and blurbs: The Coupling Convention
English.
2005
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 3 Book proposal: Idylls of the Kingfish: Race, Paternity, and the Popular
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 4 Book proposal and related materials: The Black Feminist Reader
1993-2013
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 5 Book review by duCille: Recovering the Lost Labors of Frances Harper
circa 1994
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 6 Book review by duCille: untitled
2006
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 9 Book review by duCille: Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis DeVeaux
English.
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 7 Book review by duCille: Who Reads Here? Back Talking with Houston Baker
1992
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 8 Book reviews of Skin Trade by duCille
1996-1998
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 9 Clippings re: Barbie dolls
1992
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 10 Clippings re: Black police officers
2000
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 11 Clippings re: Gayle Jones
1998
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 10 Clippings re: Henry Louis Gates Jr., Huck Finn, and Martin Luther King Jr.
1992-2000
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 12 Clippings re: Obama family
2008-2009
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 13 Clippings re: race
2010-2014
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 14 Clippings re: Tricia Rose
2003
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 15 Clippings re: television shows
2014
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 11 Conference material; includes introductory remarks, flyers, and programs for various conferences
1990-2004
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 12 Conference material: American Studies Association and Modern Language Association conference abstracts, panel proposals, and papers
1991-2002
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 16 Conference material: "Black Women Writers and the 'High Art' of Afro-American Letters;" includes planning materials, final report, and flyers
1997-1998
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 13 Conference paper re: Zora Neale Hurston
1990
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 17 Conference program: "Black Intellectuals and the Academy: The Work of Claudia Tate"
December 7, 2001
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 18 Conference program: "Quiet as it's Kept: Passing Subjects, Contested Identities"
April 2019
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 19 Conference program: "Unstoppable Women"
May 18, 2000
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 14 Correspondence: personal; includes letters from former students and friends
1992-1995
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 15 Correspondence: personal; contains postcard and color photographs from friend
2000
Box [31236073964903] 1, Folder 16 Correspondence: professional
1994-2001
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 20 Correspondence: professional
1998, 2008, 2015
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 1 Correspondence: professional re: boards, committees, and conferences
1994-2006
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 2 Correspondence: professional re: renewal of appointment as Professor of English and African American Studies at Wesleyan University
English.
1999
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 3 Correspondence: professional re: talks and writings
English.
2015-2020
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 2 Correspondence: professional re: university appointments and committee invitations
1992-2002
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 3 Correspondence: publisher letters
1990-2002
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 21 Correspondence from Gonzalez, Bill Johnson
2006
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 22 Correspondence from Webb, Ayana
2011
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 23 Correspondence re: "The Perfect Man" by duCille
1998
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 4 Dissertation proposal
1989
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 24 Draft abstract: "Boricua Barbie and the Shirley Temple of Doom"
1998
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 4 Draft article: "Black Lives Matter... To Whom? How Liberal Hollywood has Failed People of Color"
English.
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 25 Draft article: "Coltel; or, the President's Daughter;" includes research materials and handwritten notes
circa 2005
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 26 Draft article: "Of Race, Gender, and the Novel or Where in the World is Toni Morrison?"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 27 Draft article: "The Rape of the Lot: The Black Woman as Subjected (Historiographical) Subject;" includes handwritten notes
1988
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 28 Draft article: "The Shirley Temple of my Familiar"
circa 1997
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 29 Draft article: "There is Confusion: Reclassifying Jessie Fauset"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 30 Draft article: untitled re: Plum Bun by Jessie Fauset
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 31 Draft article: "Work"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 32 Draft paper: "Homeland Offense"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 33 Draft paper: "Hurstonism: Reading Beyond the Harlem 'Error'"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 34 Draft paper: "Periracism: Racial Geography and the 'First Difference Which Strikes Us'"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 35 Draft paper: "Place and Dis-Place: Periracism and the Geographics of Identity"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 36 Draft paper: "A Time to Kill Shirley Temple: Reading Race and Paternity in Contemporary Television and Film"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 37 Draft paper: untitled [partial]
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 38 Draft poetry: "Little White Lies and Sins of Omission"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 39 Draft poetry: various titles
circa 1975
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 40 Draft review by duCille: "Against the Closet" by Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman
2012
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 41 Draft "short stories and vignettes"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 42 Draft synopsis: "Death Makes the Dean's List"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 43 Draft synopsis: "The Howling Coyote"
n.d.
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 5 Draft talk: "Bawdy Language: Beauty and the Beast of Barbie"
English.
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 44 Draft talk: "Inconspicuous Consumption: A Literary Theory of the Black Leisure Class"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 45 Draft talk: "'Nobody's Darling:' Periracism and the Truly Diss-Advantaged"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 46 Draft talk: "O Pioneers! Vision/Revision and Black Women Scholars at Work"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 47 Draft talk: untitled re: 2001 commencement
2001
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 6 Draft talk: untitled re: O.J. Simpson
English.
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 48 Draft talk: "What a Difference a War makes: Race and the Red, White, and Blue"
n.d.
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 7 Draft talk: "Was Shakespeare Black?"
English.
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 49 Editing materials for differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies marriage issue
2000, 2016-2018
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 5 Field proposal, "Black Women Novelists and the African American Literary Tradition, 1859 to the Present"
1988
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 50 List of Black Academy Award winners and nominees
2002, 2010
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 51 List: staff and faculty contacts
2008-2009
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 6-9 Manuscript draft: Technicolored: Reflections on Race in the Time of TV
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 52 Notes re: "Hemings and Jefferson"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 53 Notes re: television
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 54 Notes re: various topics
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 55 Offprint: Fiction for the Purposes of History by Richard Slotkin
2005
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 10 Personal essay, "Notes on Hamilton," re: duCille's time at Hamilton College in 1974 and the importance of documenting women's history
March 10, 2017
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 8 Photographs
English.
circa 1975
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 56 Photo of duCille (color)
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 57 Photos of duCille (black and white)
n.d.
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 11 Poems by Ann duCille
1987, n.d.
Oversize [31236104060374] Pembroke Center Archives catch-all oversize box 4XXX Posters for talks by duCille
English.
2017
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 58 Posters for talks by duCille
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 59 Print material: "Africana Studies Program 40th Anniversary, Vassar College"
2009
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 60 Print material: "Black Students at Wesleyan"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 61 Print material: "Blacks in Rhode Island: A Heritage Discovered"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 62 Print material: Brown Alumni Magazine
March/April 2001
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 9 Print material: Corregidora by Gayl Jones; includes inscription and photo from Jones to duCille
English.
1975
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 63 Print material: "Golden Legacy Illustrated History Magazine: Crispus Attucks and the Minutemen"
1967
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 64 Print material: "Hallelujah Voices: Taproots"
May 20, 1988
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 65 Print material: Jet
March 7, 2005
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 66 Print material: "Life Skills" course offering poster, Brandeis University
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 67 Print material: "The Nubian: South Providence Girls Club mini-magazine"
December 1973
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 68 Print material: "Perrywinkles: Poems by Children"
Winter-Spring 1979
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 69 Print material: post card
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 70 Print material: "Try Arts"
1978-1979
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 71 Print material: The Wesleyan Argus
March 2, 2001
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 12 "Prospectus"
n.d.
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 13 Publishing contracts; includes correspondence
1990-1995
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 72 Slides of Barbie dolls (1 of 2)
1994-1995
Box [31236104064632] 5 Slides of Barbie dolls (2 of 2)
1994-1995
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 73 Slides of "Figuring (Out) Youth: Visual Media for the Masses"
1994-1995
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 74 Slides of O.J. Simpson trial press (1 of 2)
1994-1995
Box [31236104064632] 5 Slides of O.J. Simpson trial press (2 of 2)
1994-1995
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 75 Student work by duCille: papers for various courses
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 76 Student work by duCille: papers and handwritten notes for various courses
1971
Box [31236104063030] 3, Folder 10 Subject file re: Hurston, Zora Neale; includes handwritten notes and partial typed talk draft
English.
2005
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 77 Teaching material: "Literature of the Human Condition"
n.d.
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 78 Yearbook: East Bridgewater High School
1965
Box [31236104064624] 4, Folder 79 Electronic records: "Barbie slides" (CD)
n.d.
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 14 Electronic records: Clark University conference lecture, "Periracism" (DVD)
April 5, 2007
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 14 Electronic records: draft[?], "The Bucher's Dozen 6/29 version" (disk: title crossed out on recto)
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 14 Electronic records: draft, "The Coupling Covention" (Word Perfect 5.0 on disk)
n.d.
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 14 Electronic records: draft, "The World According to Barbie" (Word Perfect 5.1 on disk)
n.d.
Box [31236073964911] 2, Folder 15 Restricted materials; includes recommendations and personal identifying information
1994-2002