Academia, late 1960s-2002

Please Note:

This collection is currently undergoing processing. The Academia series, Events and Engagement series, and Research Materials series are unavailable until approximately June 2026.

Scope and content:

This series contains materials related to Sylvia Wynter's career as a professor and administrator at Stanford University, the University of California San Diego, and other institutions. It includes teaching materials such as lecture notes, course syllabi and handouts, and reading lists, as well as administrative materials such as correspondence, memorandums, and reports related to Wynter's role as a faculty member at several universities, especially related to the African and African American Studies Department at Stanford. The Teaching and Lectures subseries contains extensive lecture notes, reading lists and course readers, and planning materials on courses Wynter developed and taught many times, such as "AAAS 115: Africa and Philosophy" and "AAAS 114: Africa and the Black Diaspora", as well as seminars and lecture series she gave as a guest lecturer, such as "September 11, Its Aftermath", and "Historical Construction? Or Cultural Code?", which have overlap with the Writings series. Many courses were not clearly identified. The Administrative Materials subseries includes materials documenting the Western core curriculum and multiculturalism debates at Stanford, as well as the organization No Humans Involved and the conference The Two Reservations, both founded and organized partly by Wynter, along with limited materials from other universities.

Processing information:

When first received by Rubenstein Library, materials were not grouped into clear series, and significant portions were unfoldered. Wynter's original folders were often unmarked, and contents were often not clearly identified as one work or course. Courses were identified in folder titles during processing, where possible.

Teaching materials were typically identified by the presence of lecture notes, or by the presence of syllabi, handouts, and other course materials. These materials are also present in other series, especially the Writings Series, but were moved to the Teaching and Lectures subseries if the folder or grouping appear to be predominantly these formats.

Many materials in course readers or course preparation materials were photocopies of published works. Where citation information was present and there were no significant annotations, these extra photocopies were discarded. Extra copies of identical course materials in the same folder were also discarded. Student records and grade lists were removed in accordance with FERPA.

The majority of materials in the Administrative Materials subseries were not in folders, and were grouped together topically during processing.

Contents

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