By Shawn Proctor

Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness is announced as the winner of The 2022 Women’s Prize For Fiction, taking place at Bedford Square Gardens, London. Picture date: Wednesday June 15, 2022. PA Photo. As the winner of the prize, which is now in its 27th year, Ruth Ozeki will receive £30,000. Photo credit should read: Ian West/PA Wire (Used for editorial purposes, courtesy of the Women’s Prize)

The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist was recently announced, and Falvey Library has acquired the full longlist of books (along with many other DEI-focused award-winning or nominated books). A special landing page will help patrons learn what titles have been added and how to search for them within the Library’s collection. See the full list at the bottom of this blog!

“The Women’s Prize for Fiction is a celebration of women’s creativity and literary achievements. We’re excited to offer the Women’s Prize longlist from this year forward as part of an initiative to diversify our shelves. One of our vendor partners, Gobi, is offering an approval plan based on DEI-focused literary prizes, so a curated list of award-winning titles will be highlighted in the main collection,” says Danielle Dempsey, MLIS, Metrics and Assessment Librarian.

In fall 2023, Falvey Library introduced a new collection of print books that have been nominated for or awarded the diversity-focused prizes listed on this page. This highlighted collection aligns with Falvey Library’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Collection Development Statement, which informs collection development in all subject areas across the Library.

Please note: the Women’s Prize also launched an inaugural non-fiction prize, which is also exciting and worth a look!

• Hangman by Maya Binyam, published by ONE (Pushkin Press)
• In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, published by époque press
• And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott, published by Allen & Unwin
• The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, published by Jonathan Cape
• The Maiden by Kate Foster, published by Mantle
• Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, published by Viking
• Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, published by Canongate Books
• Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, published by Jonathan Cape
• Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, published by Faber & Faber
• 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, published by Virago
• The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, published by Gollancz
• Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, published by Picador
• Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie, published by Oneworld
• Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, published by Jonathan Cape
• River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure, published by Duckworth Books
• A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams, published by Legend Press

Shawn Proctor, MFA, is Communication and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Library.

Image courtesy of GLAAD.

Today, March 31, is International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) which honors the trans community and celebrates transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people. While TDOV is a day to celebrate the lives and contributions of trans people, we must also bring attention to the poverty, discrimination, and violence the community faces.

“In 2023, over 400 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed so far, with over half specifically targeting trans people, particularly youth. Both 2021 and 2022 saw a massive increase in anti-trans legislation. This anti-trans hypervisibility harms all trans people who are being demonized and scapegoated by politicians and in many media outlets” (GLAAD).

Villanova supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learn more about the University’s commitment and efforts to embrace and expand diversity in our community.

Learn more about TDOV on the Human Rights Campaign website.

We encourage the Villanova community to increase awareness about related topics, needs, and challenges the trans community faces. Explore trans and queer resources available to the Villanova community here. No list of this nature could ever be comprehensive, but we hope these titles will serve as a starting point.

For more transgender literature available at Falvey Library visit the links below or browse the Library’s catalog.

• Stone Butch Blues by Jess Goldberg (2003)
• Yes, You Are Trans Enough: My Transition From Self-Loathing to Self-Love by Mia Violet (2018) *eBook
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Trans (But Were Afraid to Ask) by Brynn Tannehill (2019) *eBook
• Uncomfortable Labels: My Life As a Gay Autistic Trans Woman (Laura Kate Dale, 2019) *eBook
• Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano (2016)
• The Membranes by Chi Ta-Wei (1995)
• Trans by Juliet Jacques (2015)
• Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community by Laura Erickson-Schroth (2014)
• Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities by Rogers Brubaker (2016) *eBook
• Trans by Hilda Raz (2001) *eBook
• Trans Poems by Hilda Raz (2021) *eBook
• Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability by Judith, Halberstam (2018) *eBook
• Trans Power: Own Your Gender by Juno Roche (2020) *eBook
• Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg (1998)
• Trans Love: An Anthology of Transgender and Non-binary Voices by Freiya Benson (2019) *eBook

By Jutta Seibert

Two Soldiers Leading Two Moors before a King.
Illumination from the Vidal Mayor manuscript, Ms. Ludwig XIV 6, fol. 244.
Courtesy of the Getty Museum Open Content Program.

It is generally accepted that diverse religious groups coexisted in medieval Europe, often in close vicinity, but scholars still dispute whether coexistence was sustained through peaceful or violent means. A rich corpus of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic legal texts archived by the RELMIN project sheds light on the regulation of interfaith relations in the medieval Euro-Mediterranean world.

The project focused the efforts of a dedicated group of scholars on collecting, studying, and publishing ten centuries worth of documents related to the legal status of religious minorities in the Middle Ages. From 2000 to 2015, the project built a database that compiled a unique corpus of legal texts with financial support by the European Research Council.

The Advanced Search feature offers a controlled keyword list that takes most of the guesswork out of search term selection. It also offers a format facet that distinguishes between close to fifty different document types, among them legal opinions, hadith, responsa, royal charters, papal bulls, fatwas, and assizes. The documentation for each legal text includes the text in its original language, English and French translations, common English and French titles together with the original title and a descriptive title, known author(s), a reference to the sources from which the original text and the translation(s) were taken, document type, topical keywords, and estimated or known date. Project collaborators contributed historical context and summaries, secondary sources, and, in some cases, a publication history.

The RELMIN database also includes an author index with links to author biographies with cross-references to other texts by the same author. Similarly, the contributors index links to all contributions by collaborating scholars. Dr. Rebecca Winer, Professor of Medieval History at Villanova University, contributed to the archive. There are some signs of neglect such as broken links and images, but the archive is otherwise functional. A tip sheet with detailed instructions can be consulted online.

RELMIN conferences proceedings were published under the series title Religion and Law in Medieval Christian and Muslim Societies in collaboration with Brepols. The proceedings are available in the French open research archive HAL and records with links can be found in the Library’s catalog.

Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.