Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Biography/History
Scope and Content
Organization and Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Related Material
Descriptive Summary
Title: Robin Ruth Linden papers
Date (inclusive): 1976-1984
Collection number: 1957
Creator:
Linden, Robin Ruth 1956 -
Extent:
3 document boxes (1.5 linear ft.)
Abstract: Robin Ruth Linden is a writer and sociologist whose research has explored women's health, the politics of technomedicine,
the Holocaust, reflexive ethnography and life histories. She received the Helen Hooven Santmyer Prize in women's studies and
was the Associate Dean of the Graduate School for Holistic Studies at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, CA. Her major
works include Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis (editor), Making Stories, Making Selves: Feminsit Reflections
on the Holocaust (author) and AIDS on the Ground: Service Learning in a Global Epidemic (coauthored with Carolyn Laub). This
collection contains working notes, manuscripts and drafts from the collection edited by Robin Ruth Linden, Against Sadomasochism.
Also included are materials from the establishing years of the Women's Studies program at University of California at Santa
Cruz, financial and distribution information for Olivia Records, and other Women's distribution outlets. Notes, release forms
and funding for the production of Feminism and Science - a video produced by Robin Ruth Linden are also included, as are documents
relating to the Feminism and the Philosophy of Science Conference which served as the video's inspiration. Letters, reviews
and information relating to the Mary Daly Boston College controversy as well as miscellaneous articles and essays relating
to a broad range of feminist topics are also represented. Researchers who would like to indicate errors of fact or omissions
in this finding aid can contact the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections.
Language: Finding aid is written in
English.
Language of the Material:
Materials are in English.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections
for paging information.
Administrative Information
Restrictions on Access
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library
Special Collections for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright
owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Provenance unknown. This collection is part of an outreach and collection-building partnership between the June L. Mazer Lesbian
Archives, the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) and the UCLA Library.
Processing Note
Processed by Stacy Wood, 2011.
Sponsor
The
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive at UCLA is an outreach and collection-building partnership between the
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives , the
UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) and the
UCLA Library . These collections expand the pool of primary source materials available to researchers and to the community at large. This
partnership was initiated by CSW and is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to inventory, organize,
preserve, and digitize more than eighty Mazer collections pertaining to lesbian and feminist activism and writings.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Robin Ruth Linden papers (Collection Number 1957). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E.
Young Research Library, UCLA.
Biography/History
Robin Ruth Linden is a writer and sociologist whose research has explored women's health, the politics of technomedicine,
the Holocaust, reflexive ethnography and life histories. She received the Helen Hooven Santmyer Prize in women's studies and
was the Associate Dean of the Graduate School for Holistic Studies at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, CA.
Her major works include Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis (editor), Making Stories, Making Selves: Feminist
Reflections on the Holocaust (author) and AIDS on the Ground: Service Learning in a Global Epidemic (coauthored with Carolyn
Laub).
Linden also founded the Holocaust Media Project with Lani Silver in 1983 which became the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History
Project (BAHOHP) whose mission is to gather oral life histories of Holocaust survivors, liberators, rescuers and eyewitnesses.
The Project is developing and maintaining a catalogue database for public use. Their goal is to provide students, scholars,
resource centers around the world and the general public access to their archives in 1997.
Much of Linden's work and politics were at the center of the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1970s and 1980s. The Feminist Sex Wars
and Lesbian Sex Wars, or simply the Sex Wars or Porn Wars, were the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement and lesbian
community in the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminist strategies regarding sexuality, sexual representation,
pornography, sadomasochism, the role of trans women in the lesbian community, and other sexual issues. The debate pitted anti-pornography
feminism against sex-positive feminism, and the feminist movement ended up deeply divided as a result. The Feminist Sex Wars
are sometimes viewed as part of the division that led to the end of the second-wave feminist era.
Linden was also involved in distribution for Olivia Records, a collective founded in 1973 to record and market women's music.
Olivia Records was the center of some controversy due to the involvement of Sandy Stone, a transgendered Academic theorist,
media theorist, author and performance artist. Stone was the sound engineer for Olivia records and drew criticism from a transphobic
portion of the lesbian community as documented in the collection.
Linden was also heavily involved with Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), a radical feminist anti-pornography
activist group based in San Francisco and an influential force in the larger feminist anti-pornography movement of the late
1970s and 1980s.
Scope and Content
This collection contains working notes, manuscripts and drafts from the collection edited by Robin Ruth Linden, Against Sadomasochism.
Also included are materials from the establishing years of the Women's Studies program at University of California at Santa
Cruz, financial and distribution information for Olivia Records, and other Women's distribution outlets. Notes, release forms
and funding for the production of Feminism and Science--a video produced by Robin Ruth Linden--are also included, as are documents
relating to the Feminism and the Philosophy of Science Conference which served as the video's inspiration. Letters, reviews
and information relating to the Mary Daly Boston College controversy as well as miscellaneous articles and essays relating
to a broad range of feminist topics are also represented.
Organization and Arrangement
Materials arranged according to subject.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Subjects
Linden, Robin Ruth, 1956- --Archives.
Women sociologists --California --Archival resources.
Sadomasochism --Social aspects --Archival resources.
Related Material
The Robin Ruth Linden Papers 1978-1983 are located at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. There are also materials
related to Olivia Records between 1979-99 in the San Francisco LGBT Business Ephemera Collection 1960-2010 at the Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, Transgender HIstorical Society.