Two articles are suggested for this Munch and Mull conversation, both regarding gender, race, and sentimentality or nostalgia in libraries: Vocational Awe (Fobazi Ettarh, 2018); and How Cute! (Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017). Join us in this continuing discussion of the political realities of librarianship, as we put these two articles into conversation.

Of Ettarh’s article, librarian blogger Ingrid Conley-Abrams says: “We are 'radical'. We are guardians of free speech and gatekeepers to safe spaces. We are anti-racist, inclusive, feminist, and progressive. And we are. Sometimes. Infrequently. Rarely. At our best, we are all these things. But quite often, vocational awe prevents us from seeing ourselves as who we really are: a profession with the history that proves we have the ability to be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and downright regressive. Instead of resting on the idea that we are intrinsically good for our communities, we must instead make concerted and deliberate efforts to actually do so. Even in small, manageable ways.”

In How Cute! Race, Gender, and Neutrality in Libraries (discussed in M&M March 12), Schlesselman-Tarango concentrates specifically on sentimentality and nostalgia and how it operates in libraries and among librarians. Her claim is that nostalgia supports the (false) notion that libraries are, and always have been, “for all and against none.” Similar to vocational awe, this serves as the centerpiece of a larger cultural project in librarianship, steeped in ahistoricity and constructing whiteness as “neutral.” Further, librarians use cuteness as an aesthetic response to neutralize or undercut this criticism.