Audre Lorde in the Hunter College Libraries

Abstract

 This place-based mini zine opens with a list of highlights from Audre Lorde’s lifelong connection to Hunter College, first as a high school and college student, and later as a distinguished professor. It invites current Hunter students to recognize their connections to Lorde and explore resources available to them via QR codes that link to curated searches on the Libraries’ website, where they can find primary sources, biographies, and theoretical analyses of her life and work. When the QR links inevitably stop working, the final invitation to visit the Libraries in person or online will always generate the connections that the zine was originally designed to foster.

The idea for this zine originated as a collaboration with Student Life Specialist tanea lunsford as a way for the Libraries to support an LGBTQ+ community event and documentary screening celebrating Lorde’s birthday in February 2025. Following the successful screening, we collaborated again to host special visits to the Hunter College archives, which invited students, alumni, staff, and faculty to interact with materials created by and about Lorde in our collections. To make the experience accessible to all visitors to the Libraries, I have since installed a display of these archival materials, with the zine serving as an entry point to further engagement with Lorde’s legacy.

​As of December 2025, hundreds of copies of the zine have been collected from the exhibit, and hundreds more have been requested by student groups, faculty, and administrators. The evolving trajectory of this mini zine demonstrates the impact and versatility of this format for engaging academic communities, activating institutional memory, and making scholarship accessible in dynamic ways