The Barbara DeGenevieve Memorial Library is a collection of books previously owned by Barbara DeGenevieve (1947–2014). Originally housed by Mana Contemporary and open to their community and the public, the collection is now housed at Ohklahomo.

In response to the exhibition, the SAIC Galleries and Flaxman Library at the School of the Art Institute collaborated on a bibliography for the semester including books from DeGenevieve’s library, syllabi, and visiting artists.

Ohklahomo:

Ohklahomo is an experimental performance, sound, art and language space located in Mark Jeffery and Lori Talley’s basement on Iowa Street in Chicago. As of 2023, the space began hosting the library of maverick Barbara DeGenevieve in an effort to allow for response, conversation and activation of her legacy.

Most of the books in the Memorial Library are nonfiction: texts she used as resources for her artwork, or for teaching classes in the department of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The collection is organized thematically, separated by genres such as philosophy, art history, and gender studies. These themes were important components in research and production of DeGenevieve’s visual works. Her library showcases her thoughts, references, and sources of inspiration.

  1. The Activist’s Handbook by Randy Shaw
  2. Queer by William S. Burroughs
  3. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris 
  4. Valis by Philip K. Dick
  5. Against the Grain (A Rebours) by J. K. Huysmans 
  6. Dares to Speak: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Boy-Love edited Joseph Geraci 
  7. The Practice of Love: Lesbian Sexuality and Perverse Desire by Teresa de Lauretis 
  8. Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories edited by Diana Fuss
  9. Secret Publicity: Essays on Contemporary Art by Sven Lütticken
  10.  The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life: Why We Hurt Ourselves—And Others—And How to Stop by John Munder
  11.  The Critical Image: Essays on Contemporary Photography edited by Carol Squiers
  12.  Words Without Pictures
  13.  A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
  14.  Poetry: An Introduction by Jeffrey D. Hoeper and James H. Pickering
  15.  Bad Girls & Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism by Alison Assiter & Avedon Carol 
  16.  The Freud Reader edited by Peter Gay
  17.  Art and Morality edited by José Luis Bermúdez and Sebastian Gardner
  18.  Taking It Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture by David Savran
  19.  The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader edited by Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin
  20.  Photography: What’s the Law?: How the photographer and the user of photographs can protect themselves by Robert M. Cavallo and Stuart Kahan
  21.  Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Nadine Strossen 
  22.  Polysexuality edited by François Peraldi 
  23.  Fetishism as Cultural Discourse edited by Emily Apter & William Pietz
  24.  The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty by Dave Hickey 
  25.  Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment by Jane Gallop 
  26.  Counter-Blast by Marshall McLuhan
  27.  The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500-1800 edited Lynn Hunt 
  28.  Abuses by Alphonso Lingis 
  29.  Pornography and Difference by Berkeley Kaite
  30.  Ecstasy Unlimited: On Sex, Capital, Gender, and Aesthetics by Laura Kipnis 
  31.  Bodies Under Siege: Self-mutilation in Culture and Psychiatry by Armando R. Favazza 
  32.  Social Text 37
  33.  The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography edited by Richard Bolton
  34.  LAmour Fou: Photography & Surrealism by Rosalind Krauss and Jane Livingston 
  35.  Shock Treatment by Karen Finley 
  36. The Age of Sex Crime by Jane Caputi 
  37. Overexposed: Treating Sexual Perversion in America by Sylvère Lotringer
  38.  Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World by Walter Truett Anderson 
  39.  Remarks on Colour by Ludwig Wittgenstein
  40.  The Edge of The Bed: How Dirty Pictures Changed My Life by Lisa Palac 
  41.  Project Cheap 
  42.  The Classing Gaze: Sexuality, Class and Surveillance by Lynette Finch
  43.  Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America’s Censorship Wars by Marjorie Heins
  44.  Spanking the Maid by Robert Coover
  45.  Sexual Sameness: Textual Differences in Lesbian and Gay Writing edited by Joseph Bristow 
  46.  Performance & Cultural Politics edited by Elin Diamond 
  47.  Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture 13th-18th Centuries by Jean Delumeau
  48.  Personals: Portraits of Real People and Their Personal Ads! 
  49.  New Sexual Agendas edited by Lynne Segal 
  50.  The Sex Which Is Not One by Luce Irigaray 
  51.  Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde by Susan Rubin Suleiman 
  52.  A Century of Gay Erotica by Phil Andros, Samuel R. Delany, John Preston, Larry Townsend and Aaron Travis
  53.  Dissemination by Jacques Derrida
  54.  Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault by Jonathan Dollimore
  55.  Roland Barthes by Michael Moriarty 
  56.  Discontents: New Queer Writers edited by Dennis Cooper
  57.  XY: On Masculine Identity by Elisabeth Badinter
  58.  Global Sex by Dennis Altman 
  59.  The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, & Social Responsibility edited by Carol Becker (x2)
  60.  Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology and Desire by Laurence O’Toole
  61.  Skin: A Natural History by Nina G. Jablonski 
  62.  Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations by bell hooks
  63.  Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality by Lynda Nead 
  64.  120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature by Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova
  65.  Feminism and Psychoanalysis edited by Richard Feldstein and Judith Roof
  66.  Arts in Crisis: The National Endowment for the Arts Versus America by Joseph Wesley Zeigler
  67.  Signs of the Flesh by Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
  68.  The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two by George H. Roeder, Jr. 
  69.  Latent Image: The Discovery of Photography by Beaumont Newhall 
  70.  Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions of American Feminism by Josephine Donovan 
  71.  Bodies of Work: Essays by Kathy Acker
  72.  Appropriation edited by David Evans
  73.  Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murders edited by Brian King
  74.  Nova Express by William S. Burroughs 
  75.  Push Comes to Shove: New Images of Aggressive Women by Maud Lavin
  76.  Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic by Terry Eagleton 
  77.  How Class Works: Power and Social Movement by Stanley Aronowitz 
  78.  Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror & Comedy by William Paul
  79.  With Pleasure: Thoughts on the Nature of Human Sexuality by Paul R. Abramson and Steven D. Pinkerton
  80.  Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art by Julia Kristeva, edited by Leon S. Roudiez
  81.  Storytown: Stories by Susan Daitch 
  82.  One of the Guys: Women as Aggressors and Tortures edited by Tara McKelvey
  83.  Good Looking: Essays on the Virtue of Images by Barbara Maria Stafford
  84.  A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud
  85.  Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays by Stephen Hawking
  86.  Dirty Looks: Women, Pornography, Power edited by Pamela Church Gibson and Roma Gibson
  87.  Risk/Riesgo 2, no. 3
  88.  Violence and the Sacred by René Girard
  89.  The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the 1940’s by Mary Ann Doane 
  90.  Thinking the Body by Jane Gallop
  91.  A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis by David M. Friedman
  92.  Veronica’s Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography edited by Elizabeth Janus
  93.  Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex by Judith Levine
  94.  100 Years of Erotica: A Pornographic Portfolio of Mainstream American Culture from 1845-1945 by Paul Aratow
  95.  Between the Body and the Flesh by Lynda Hart 
  96.  In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification by Victoria Pitts
  97.  The Body and The Lens: Photography 1839 to the Present by John Pultz
  98.  The Man Question: Visions of Subjectivity in Feminist Theory by Kathy E. Ferguson
  99.  Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality by Sherry B. Ortner and Harriet Whitehead
  100. The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz
  101. Feminists Theorize the Political edited by Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott
  102. Her Tongue on My Theory: Images, Essays, and Fantasies by Kiss & Tell
  103. The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking by Theodore Roszak 
  104. Supposing the Subject edited by Joan Copjec
  105. Naked Ambition: Women Who Are Changing Pornography edited by Carly Milne
  106. Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting by James R. Kincaid 
  107. Male Subjectivity at the Margins by Kaja Silverman
  108. Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body by Peter Lehman
  109. Sexual Consent by David Archard
  110. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag
  111. The Art Lover by Carole Maso 
  112. Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub
  113. Virtual Gender: Fantasies of Subjectivity and Embodiment edited by Mary Ann O’Farrell & Lynne Vallone
  114. Arguing with the Phallus: Feminist, Queer, and Postcolonial Theory by Jan Campbell 
  115. Body Transformations: Evolutions and Atavisms in Culture by Alphonso Lingis 
  116. Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture by Jonathan Crary
  117. Erotic Faculties by Joanna Frueh
  118. Naked Las Vegas by Greg Friedler 
  119. The Aesthetics of Disappearance by Paul Virilio
  120. Body Art/Performing the Subject by Amelia Jones
  121. Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life
  122. The Woman in Question edited by Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie
  123. Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate edited by Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosh
  124. Feminism & Pornography by Drucilla Cornell
  125. Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
  126. The Hysterical Male: New Feminist Theory edited by Arthur Kroker and Marilouise Kroker 
  127. Sublime Surrender: Male Masochism at the Fin-De-Siècle by Suzanne R. Stewart
  128. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
  129. Sex & Sensibility: Reflections on Forbidden Mirrors and the Will to Censor by Marcia Pally
  130. The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography by Angela Carter
  131. Discourses of Sexuality: From Aristotle to AIDS edited by Domna C. Stanton
  132. Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and the Mark of Aggression by Lynda Hart 
  133. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century by John Boswell
  134. Building Bodies edited Pamela L. Moore
  135. White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art by Maurice Berger
  136. Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race by K. Anthony Appiah and may Gutmann 
  137. Am I Black Enough for You?: Popular Culture From the ‘Hood and Beyond by Todd Boyd
  138. Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a ‘Postfeminist’ Age by Tania Modleski
  139. The Sexual Brain by Simon LeVay
  140. Pornography: Film and Culture edited by Peter Lehman
  141. Prosthetic Culture: Photography, Memory and Identity by Celia Lury
  142. From Mastery to Analysis: Theories of Gender in Psychoanalytic Feminism by Patricia Elliot
  143. The Pornography of Power by Lionel Rubinoff
  144. Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
  145. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone
  146. Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture by James R. Kincaid 
  147. Sex, Laws, and Cyberspace: Freedom and Censorship on the Frontiers of the Online Revolution by Jonathan Wallace and Mark Mangan 
  148. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” by Judith Butler
  149. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory by Toril Moi
  150. Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families by Pamela Paul 
  151. Grotesque: Natural Historical & Formaldehyde Photography
  152. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory by Maggie Humm
  153. The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women’s Fiction by Barbara Claire Freeman 
  154. XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography by Wendy McElroy
  155. Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings by Marquis De Sade