Two weeks ago, JPHigherEd asked higher education professionals to name some titles that they have found transformative with regards to the social justice work they do on campus! We asked, “What are the must-have books?” Some contributed titles, some contributed authors, and others contributed compiled lists of books that already exist! Below, you will find a short list of the resources that we gathered! Then, as you continue down the page, you will find a long list of the books y’all recommended! This list is in a PDF format so that you can save it to your computer and reference it later!

A Race is a Nice Thing to Have, Second Edition by Dr. Janet Helms

“This book is designed to help White people assume responsibility for ending racism, understand how racism impacts Whites as well as others, analyze racism, and discover positive alternatives for living in a multicultural society. Many self-analysis exercises and instruments enrich the text.”

Black Girl Dangerous on Race, Queerness, Class and Gender by Mia McKenzie

Mia McKenzie, creator of the enormously popular website Black Girl Dangerous, writes about race, queerness, class and gender in a concise, compelling voice filled at different times with humor, grief, rage, and joy. In this collection of her work from BGD (now available only in this book), McKenzie’s nuanced analysis of intersecting systems of oppression goes deep to reveal the complicated truths of a multiply-marginalized experience. McKenzie tackles the hardest questions of our time with clarity and courage, in language that is accessible to non-academics and academics alike. She is both fearless and vulnerable, demanding and accountable. Hers is a voice like no other. “One of the most provocative and insightful writers of our generation.” -Aura Bogado, Colorlines

My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarchy and Sex Positivity by Kate Bornstein

Cultural theorists have written loads of smart but difficult-to-fathom texts on gender theory, but most fail to provide a hands-on, accessible guide for those trying to sort out their own sexual identities. In My Gender Workbook, transgender activist Kate Bornstein brings theory down to Earth and provides a practical approach to living with or without a gender.

Bornstein starts from the premise that there are not just two genders performed in today’s world, but countless genders lumped under the two-gender framework. Using a unique, deceptively simple and always entertaining workbook format, complete with quizzes, exercises, and puzzles, Bornstein gently but firmly guides readers toward discovering their own unique gender identity.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population. Though undoubtedly an account of one woman’s quest for self at all costs, Redefining Realness is a powerful vision of possibility and self-realization, pushing us all toward greater acceptance of one another—and of ourselves—showing as never before how to be unapologetic and real.

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see black youth seated together in the cafeteria. Of course, it’s not just the black kids sitting together-the white, Latino, Asian Pacific, and, in some regions, American Indian youth are clustered in their own groups, too. The same phenomenon can be observed in college dining halls, faculty lounges, and corporate cafeterias. What is going on here? Is this self-segregation a problem we should try to fix, or a coping strategy we should support? How can we get past our reluctance to talk about racial issues to even discuss it? And what about all the other questions we and our children have about race? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, asserts that we do not know how to talk about our racial differences: Whites are afraid of using the wrong words and being perceived as “racist” while parents of color are afraid of exposing their children to painful racial realities too soon. Using real-life examples and the latest research, Tatum presents strong evidence that straight talk about our racial identities-whatever they may be-is essential if we are serious about facilitating communication across racial and ethnic divides. We have waited far too long to begin our conversations about race. This remarkable book, infused with great wisdom and humanity, has already helped hundreds of thousands of readers figure out where to start.

Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America by Jonathan Kozol

Jonathan Kozol is one of America’s most forceful and eloquent observers of the intersection of race, poverty, and education. His books, from the National Book Award–winning Death at an Early Age to his most recent, the critically acclaimed Shame of the Nation, are touchstones of the national conscience. First published in 1988 and based on the months the author spent among America’s homeless, Rachel and Her Children is an unforgettable record of the desperate voices of men, women, and especially children caught up in a nightmarish situation that tears at the hearts of readers. With record numbers of homeless children and adults flooding the nation’s shelters, Rachel and Her Children offers a look at homelessness that resonates even louder today.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity — a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich’s perspective and for a rare view of how “prosperity” looks from the bottom. You will never see anything — from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal — in quite the same way again.

Queer Theory, Gender Theory by Riki Wilchins

A one-stop, no-nonsense introduction to the core of postmodern theory, particularly its impact on queer and gender studies. Nationally known gender activist Riki Wilchins combines straightforward prose with concrete examples from LGBT and feminist politics, as well as her own life, to guide the reader through the ideas that have forever altered our understanding of bodies, sex and desire. This is that rare postmodern theory book that combines accessibility, passion, personal experience and applied politics, noting at every turn why these ideas matter and how they can affect your daily life.

Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, Second Edition (Critical America) by Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic

In 2001, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic published their definitive Critical Race Theory, a compact introduction to the field that explained, in straightforward language, the origins, principal themes, leading voices, and new directions of this important movement in legal thought. Since then, critical race theory has gone on to influence numerous other fields of scholarship, and the Delgado and Stefancic primer has remained an indispensible guide for students and teachers.

Delgado and Stefancic have revised the book to include material on key issues such as colorblind jurisprudence, Latino-Critical scholarship, immigration, and the rollback of affirmative action. This second edition introduces readers to important new voices in fields outside of law, including education and psychology, and offers greatly expanded issues for discussion, updated reading lists, and an extensive glossary of terms.

Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law by Dean Spade

In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change, and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that is raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations, and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence.

Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis

A powerful study of the women’s movement in the U.S. from abolitionist days to the present that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders.

Misunderstood Millennial Talent: The Other Ninety-One Percent (Center for Talent Innovation) by Joan Synder Kuhl & Jennifer Zephirin

Corporate recruiters and employers tend to perceive Millennials as a major flight risk, not worth investing in because they’ll be out the door in a year or two. Yet our data reveals this stereotype to be grossly misapplied. While Millennials with a financial safety net are far more likely than those who lack it to be a flight risk, they comprise a mere nine percent of this talent cohort. In Misunderstood Millennial Talent, we bust other myths about employees between the ages of 21 and 34 to stress the imperative to talent specialists of investing in this next generation of leaders.

Queer Rock Love: A Family Memoir by Paige Schist

What happens when an introverted feminist academic tosses off her big black nerd glasses and succumbs to a brutal crush on a hard-rockin’ Texas boygirl? Paige Schilt’s journey introduces her to Southern belles, singing sperm donors, gay evangelicals, and tattooed sub-cultural kinfolk. A unique tale of family, illness, and resilience, Queer Rock Love reminds us that our trials and tribulations can sometimes become powerful sources of community and connection.

The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) by Wendy Doniger

The Bedtrick brings together hundreds of stories from all over the world, from the earliest recorded Hindu and Hebrew texts to the latest items in the Weekly World News, to show the hilariously convoluted sexual scrapes that people get into and out of. Here you will find wives who accidentally commit adultery with their own husbands. You will learn that in Hong Kong the film The Crying Game was retitled Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis. And that President Clinton was not the first man to be identified by an idiosyncratic organ. Funny, sexy, and engaging, The Bedtrick is a masterful work of energetic storytelling and dazzling scholarship. Give it to your spouse and your lover.

Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims by Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle

Living Out Islam documents the rarely-heard voices of Muslims who live in secular democratic countries and who are gay, lesbian, and transgender. It weaves original interviews with Muslim activists into a compelling composite picture which showcases the importance of the solidarity of support groups in the effort to change social relationships and achieve justice. This nascent movement is not about being “out” as opposed to being “in the closet.” Rather, as the voices of these activists demonstrate, it is about finding ways to live out Islam with dignity and integrity, reconciling their sexuality and gender with their faith and reclaiming Islam as their own.

Jewish Feminism and Intersectionality (Suny Series in Feminist Criticism and Theory) by Marla Brettschneider PhD

“Jewish Feminism and Intersectionality” explores a range of opportunities to apply and build intersectionality studies from within the life and work of Jewish feminism in the United States today. Marla Brettschneider builds on the best of what has been done in the field and offers a constructive internal critique. Working from a nonidentitarian paradigm, Brettschneider uses a Jewish critical lens to discuss the ways different politically salient identity signifiers cocreate and mutually constitute each other. She also includes analyses of matters of import in queer, critical race, and class-based feminist studies. This book is designed to demonstrate a range of ways that Jewish feminist work can operate with the full breadth of what intersectionality studies has to offer.

Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality & Spirituality by Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, Sabine Lang

This landmark book combines the voices of Native Americans and non-Indians, anthropologists and others, in an exploration of gender and sexuality issues as they relate to lesbian, gay, trans-gendered, and other “marked” Native Americans. Focusing on the concept of two-spirit people – individuals not necessarily gay or lesbian, transvestite or bisexual, but whose behaviors or beliefs may sometimes be interpreted by others as uncharacteristic of their sex – this book is the first to provide an intimate look at how many two-spirit people feel about themselves, how other Native Americans treat them, and how anthropologists and other scholars interpret them and their cultures.

(1) Trans* in College: Transgender Students’ Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion by Z Nicolazzo (Pre-Order Available)

This book not only remedies the paucity of literature on trans* college students, but does so from a perspective of resiliency and agency. Rather than situating trans* students as problems requiring accommodation, this book problematizes the college environment and frames trans* students as resilient individuals capable of participating in supportive communities and kinship networks, and of developing strategies to promote their own success.

Z Nicolazzo provides the reader with a nuanced and illuminating review of the literature on gender and sexuality that sheds light on the multiplicity of potential expressions and outward representations of trans* identity as a prelude to the ethnography ze conducted with nine trans* collegians that richly documents their interactions with, and responses to, environments ranging from the unwittingly offensive to explicitly antagonistic.

The book concludes by giving space to the study’s participants to themselves share what they want college faculty, staff, and students to know about their lived experiences. Two appendices respectively provide a glossary of vocabulary and terms to address commonly asked questions, and a description of the study design, offered as guide for others considering working alongside marginalized population in a manner that foregrounds ethics, care, and reciprocity.

(2) Black Collegians’ Experiences in Northern US Private Colleges: A Narrative History, 1945-1965 by Dr. Dafina-Lazarus Stewart (Coming soon!)

(3) Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity by Brooklyn Boihood (Pre-orders go up 8/18)

*Please note: All abstracts were obtained through Amazon.com