Coda In the Stacks of Barbara Godard, or Do Not Confuse the Complexity of This Moment with Chaos
Year: 2013
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Godard or Do Not Confuse the Complexity of This Moment with Chaos Lisa Sloniowski How we choose to remember is as significant as what we recall.(Godard, "Contested Memories" 7)Barbara Godard first appeared in my library office doorway a year and a few months before her death in May 2010.She was in remission from cancer, but had retired from York University and was trying to sort out her home before her son Alexis moved in with her.She needed to make space because, as I was soon to discover, every available piece of wall, closet, and storage in her narrow Victorian home in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood had been completely overrun by her books and attendant papers: newspaper clippings, exhibition catalogues, programs, correspondence, student papers, meeting minutes, and working drafts of her own work.She had ostensibly come to talk to me about digitizing Tessera, a project our Digital Initiatives unit would complete six months later, but at the end of our conversation, she offered to donate a few books she was carrying in her bag to York Libraries.She mentioned her home library and the difficulties she thought she might have in paring it down to a more manageable size, and I offhandedly offered to lend a hand sometime, wondering what sort of treasures and oddities might be found in the library of one of Canada's foremost feminist literary scholars.Over the next few months, every time I saw Barbara she would hand me a book or two from her personal library, again to donate to York Libraries.It was only after a few months of
Author: Lisa Sloniowski
Language: English
Subfield: Museology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: York University
OpenAlex ID: W822303255