At the Yonkers Public Library, Benjamin Zender is leading an initiative to reimagine the library’s special collections in the “local history room” as a vibrant community space.
Zender’s projects focus on community building and democratizing library collections practices. Last Fall, the Yonkers Public Library held “People’s History Day '', a day-long event exploring heritage through genealogy, understanding the value of personal objects in telling history, recording familiar stories through oral history, and a community panel on art and activism. This event also provided Yonkers-area residents with the chance to bring their own photos and mementos to the library’s first “scan-a-thon,” which was an opportunity to digitize files and add local history to the library’s digital archives.
Zender’s interest in this project stems from work with queer, trans, and women of color archivists who curate grassroots archives. This work centers small independent libraries, museums, and archives as key sites for understanding how marginalized communities build knowledge, history, and community in a world that is ambivalent about their survival.
Zender’s newest project with the Library, the “Grow, Harvest, & Feast” series, kicks off on February 17, 2024 in celebration of Black History Month. This is a year-long series of events celebrating the city’s diverse cultures through food, recipes, oral history, and community gardening.
Learn more about Benjamin at benjaminzender.com.
Course Work
Feminist and Queer Waves: Reading Canon in Context is a reverse-chronological seminar on feminist, queer, and trans theory. Students conduct independent archival research and public humanities projects in the Yonkers Public Library and the Sarah Lawrence College Archives as well as co-author a public website at https://feministqueerwaves.wordpress.com.
In Public Humanities in Practice: The Yonkers Public Library students will have the opportunity to develop a series of creative workshops at the Yonkers Public Library and curate a final event to share the essays, performances, and creative writing of participants.