Free Online Presentation: Citational Privilege: Disrupting the Patriarchy and Empowering Students Through Feminist Citation Practices
Presenters: Laura Sheets & Rebecca Stanwick
Live Session: Wednesday, October 8, 2025 1pm-2pm CT
Register here: Citational Privilege
Sponsored by the ACRL ULS Professional Development Committee
Coined by Sara Ahmed in Living a Feminist Life, citational privilege is alive and well in academia. Citation practices have the power to create canons and shift scholarly discourse. They can offer a world of unexplored spaces or shut it down in favor of a well-worn scholarly path. Protected by the patriarchal vanguard who hide behind disciplinary privilege and the unintended consequence of scholarly tradition, current citational practices (and how they are taught) funnel students towards the scholarly path, cutting off all alternatives that could lead to student exploration and creativity. These patriarchal citational practices perpetuate sexism, racism, and heteronormativity, which have long dictated who has access to knowledge, who can make knowledge, and whose knowledge is deemed legitimate.
In this webinar, the presenters will discuss both the feminist theory that grounds feminist citations practices and provide practical discussions of how to incorporate these practices into the classroom and your own scholarship practice.
Presenter Bios:
Laura Sheets
Laura is an Associate Professor and Instruction Services Librarian at Bowling Green State University. Her research interests include relational teaching and librarianship, instructional design in library instruction, and feminist citation practices. She has published in The Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning and Advances in Online Learning: A Peer-Reviewed Journal and presented at the American Library Association Annual Conference, the Illinois Information Literacy Summit, and the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy.
Laura received her M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Rebecca Stanwick, PhD.
Rebecca is an Assistant Teaching Professor and Reference and Instruction Librarian at Bowling Green State University. Her research interests include feminism in library practice, incorporating critical theory into library instruction, and the history of education. She has published in Learning to Teach, The Palgrave Handbook of Education Thinkers recently published the chapter "Liberatory Literacy: bell hooks and Critical Information Literacy Through Feminist Critique" in Critical Information Literacy Applications from All Libraries from American Library Association press. She has presented at the American Library Association and Ohio Libraries Council.
Rebecca received her PhD from the University of Toledo in the History of Education specializing in early modern women's reading and learning.
This free presentation is sponsored by the ACRL University Libraries Section Professional Development Committee. It will take place on Wednesday, October 8, 2025 1pm-2pm CT via Zoom. Register: Citational Privilege
If you can't make this session but wish to view a recording later, please register so that you'll receive an email that includes a link to the video of the presentation.
Please direct questions and concerns to Matty Johnson (matthewjohnson@usf.edu) Co-Chair of the ACRL ULS Professional Development Committee. A full list of the committee's past programs is available on the ULS website.
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Jason Kruse
Undergraduate Engagement Librarian
Northwestern University
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