The Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DIB) Collection features books and films that foster dialogue around diversity, inclusion, and belonging at HKS while representing the many identities and backgrounds in our vibrant HKS community. The DIB Collection highlights the direct experiences of those who have faced systemic marginalization, focusing on novels, poetry, literary nonfiction, memoirs, and essays.

The DIB Collection is driven by the HKS community. We extend particular gratitude to our key partners in the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (ODIB) and the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project.

Featured Collection Items

March is Womens History Month.

Cover of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

The Combahee River Collective, a group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the anti-racist and womens liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. In this collection, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to black feminism and its impact on todays struggles.

Cover of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

In the updated second edition of Whipping Girl, Julia Serano shares her powerful experiences and observations -- both pre- and post-transition -- to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.

Cover of Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts

Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour de force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Halls efforts to uncover the truth about these warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record. Hall constructs the likely pasts of women rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in colonial New York.

Cover of Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

From the founder and activist behind one of the largest movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Me Too movement, Tarana Burke debuts a powerful memoir about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words--me too--and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation in one of the largest cultural events in American history.

Copy of Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for their Rights

The ongoing struggle for womens rights has spanned human history, touched nearly every culture on Earth, and encompassed a wide range of issues, such as the right to vote, work, get an education, own property, exercise bodily autonomy, and beyond. Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists is a fun and fascinating graphic novel-style primer that covers the key figures and events that have advanced womens rights from antiquity to the modern era.

New Collection Items

Cover of Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology

In a captivating memoir, an Egyptian American visionary and scientist provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows her calling-to humanize our technology and how we connect with one another. Rana el Kaliouby’s mission has been to challenge the emotion-blind digital universe that impairs the very intelligence and capabilities that distinguish human beings from our machines -- and to learn to express her own emotions in the process.

Cover of Aquamarine

These poems, like an aquamarine, are transparent, iridescent, and evoke both sea and light--whether its the blinding light off a surface, or kaleidoscope images spilling like waves in the rearview mirror. They hold the various facets of joy and mourning, and the spectrum in between.

Cover of Black Like Me

In our era, when ‘international terrorism is most often defined in terms of a single ethnic designation and a single religion, we need to be reminded that America has been blinded by fear and racial intolerance before. Black Like Me is the story of a man who opened his eyes, and helped an entire nation to do likewise.

Cover of When I Was Red Clay: A Journey of Identity, Healing, and Wonder

This intimate record lays bare one persons experience growing up in a rural Mormon community and struggling to reconcile his sexual orientation with the religious doctrine of his childhood. Weaving together prose, poetry, and stories scrawled on the margins of high school notebooks, Jonathan T. Bailey encounters truth-seeing owls, anachronistic gourds, and the hard-edged realities of family and church.

Cover of What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD--a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Related Resources

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Research Guide

This guide supports research on DEI topics like race, gender, sexuality, disability, and religion.

LGBTQI+ Policy Guide

This guide supports research on LGBTQI+ policy through data sources, primary texts, and more.

Book Displays
 

Our February display for Black History Month features resources on Black resistance throughout U.S. history.

 

Our May display features resources on Asian American & Pacific Islander identities, experiences, history, politics, and activism.

 

Our October display features contemporary histories of LGBTQ identities, experiences, and activism in the U.S., plus key texts in queer theory.

 

Our November display features texts on Native American and Indigenous identities, experiences, history, politics, and activism.