Scope and arrangement
The Michele Wallace papers document her career as a cultural critic, journalist, and intellectual since the late 1970s. Material includes personal papers, such as biographical information and correspondence; writing, which includes contracts, publicity material, and reviews for books, essays, and poetry, among others; and professional papers, such as teaching material, conference papers, and contracts.
The Michele Wallace papers are arranged in three series:
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1962-1999
The Personal series includes biographical information on Wallace in interviews, statements, letters, and educational materials. Information about her mother, artist Faith Ringgold, and other family members is also found here. Significant correspondents include Wallace's former husband, Eugene Nesmith, and writers Jill Nelson, Ishmael Reed, Roberta (Bobbi) Sykes, Alice Walker, Cornel West, and Sherley Anne Williams.
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1975-2002
The Writing series contains five subseries, Books, Articles and essays, Interviews, Fiction, and Poetry. The Books subseries includes contracts; annotated galleys; correspondence with publishers; publicity materials; reviews for Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Invisibility Blues: From Pop to Theory, and Dark Designs and Visual Culture; and a file for the book, Black Popular Culture: A Project by Wallace and edited by Gina Dent. The Articles and essays subseries contains drafts for articles, essays, and critical papers published in the Village Voice and other magazines, journals, and anthologies. Her published interviews with Alvin Ailey, Nona Hendryx, Iman, Grace Jones, Wilma Mankiller, and Richard Pryor are included in the Interviews subseries. Wallace's unpublished novel, "Aint Nobody Business," can be found in the Fiction subseries, along with correspondence with publishers, and other unpublished fiction. The Poetry subseries contains a file of unpublished poems written by Wallace.
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1970s-2004
The Professional series is divided into six subseries: Teaching; Associations, Conferences, lectures and speaking events, contracts and Correspondence and Research files. The Teaching files are primarily syllabi and classroom notes from English courses she taught at the University of Oklahoma; State University of New York, Buffalo; University of California; City College of New York; University of Wisconsin; and Rutgers University.The Associations subseries contains files for The Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WSABAL), and The Sisterhood. Founded in 1970 by Faith Ringgold, Wallace, and her sister, Barbara Wallace, WSABAL was an ad hoc group of the Art Workers' Coalition, an organization of white artists protesting against the Museum of Modern Art and their callous treatment of artists and their work. The file contains letters about plans to demonstrate at the SVA show, as well as letters Wallace penned to Gloria Steinem, editor of Ms. Magazine. The Sisterhood was a black women's writers group which featured among its membership Margo Jefferson, Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and Wallace. These files contain minutes for meetings in 1977, in-house proposals, and letters to the membership. Additionally, Wallace's records for attending and presenting at conferences are found in the third subseries, Conferences, lectures, and speaking events. There are files for conferences including "1968 in Global Perspective", at Brooklyn College in 1988; "Critical Fictions" and "Black Popular Culture/Mass Culture Conference", at the Dia Art Foundation, in 1990 and 1991 respectively; and "Yari Yari: Black Women Writers and the Future", at New York University in 1997. Most files include drafts of speeches, research, and information about the conference or event. The next two subseries, Contracts and Correspondence, arranged by Wallace separately, relate to published writings in journals and art catalogs, as well as conferences, lectures, and speaking appearances, from 1991-2004. The last subseries, Research files, are for individuals and subjects that Wallace has written about since the early 1970s, including rap music, black women, slavery, and the arts.