Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Haraway, Donna Jeanne
- Abstract:
- This collection documents Donna Haraway's life as a scholar, writer, professor, and friend, spanning 1966 to 2024. Preserving Haraway's original organizational structure where possible, the collection distills her intellectual evolution, professional endeavors, collaborations, and correspondences, charting her journey from student and young researcher to recognized professor and influential thinker. It encompasses materials on subjects ranging from science and technology to feminism and human-animal interactions.
- Extent:
- 27.6 Linear Feet 52 boxes and 45.3 GB 17,755 digital files
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
-
Donna Haraway papers. UA 42. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection documents Donna Haraway's life as a scholar, writer, professor, and friend, spanning 1966 to 2024, with the bulk of materials dating from the 1980s to the 2010s. Preserving Haraway's original organizational structure where possible, the collection distills her intellectual evolution, professional endeavors, collaborations, and correspondences, charting her journey from student and young researcher to recognized professor and influential thinker. It encompasses materials on subjects ranging from science and technology to feminism and human-animal interactions, among many others.
Materials in Haraway's paper files include handwritten personal letters, photographs, drafts and revisions of both famous and lesser-known publications, documentation of her teaching career in the History of Consciousness department, international speaking engagements, and ongoing research threads. Additionally, a vast series of digital files offer up a closer look at Haraway's intellectual, professional, and personal life since the rise in prominence of digital file storage and electronic correspondence.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Donna Jeanne Haraway (b. 1944) is a writer, interdisciplinary scholar, and Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A prominent figure in feminist science and technology studies, Haraway's work bridges biology, philosophy, and cultural theory, challenging the epistemological foundations of scientific knowledge. Her scholarship has been foundational to feminist theory, multispecies studies, and critical engagements with technoscience.
Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Haraway was influenced both by her Catholic upbringing and an early engagement with the sciences. She earned a B.A. in Zoology from Colorado College in 1966, with minors in Philosophy and English, before studying in France on a Fulbright Fellowship at the Université de Paris and Fondation Teilhard de Chardin. She completed her Ph.D. at Yale University in 1972, where she shifted from laboratory biology to an interdisciplinary exploration of science as a cultural and historical practice. Her dissertation, guided by ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson, wove Biology together with Philosophy and the History of Science and Medicine.
Haraway's academic career has been shaped by her commitment to political and intellectual activism. In the early 1970s, she participated in anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements while living in a politically engaged commune with her then-husband, Jaye Miller, a gay rights activist. She held teaching positions at the University of Hawai'i, Johns Hopkins University, and, beginning in 1980, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she helped shape feminist studies in science and technology.
Haraway's book publications—including Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (1991) which includes prominent essays such as "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" and "Situated Knowledges"; Primate Visions (1992); When Species Meet (2008); and Staying with the Trouble (2016) to name a few—have been influential in challenging boundaries between nature/culture, human/animal, and machine/organism. Her work continues to shape contemporary conversations on family and kinship, scientific ethics, interspecies relationality, and ecological entanglements in the "Chthulucene," described by Haraway as our ongoing, thickly fused, multispecies present.
As of 2025, Haraway lives with her partner Rusten Hogness and their companion species between Santa Cruz and rural Sonoma County.
- Acquisition information:
- Gifts of Donna Haraway in 2005, 2014, 2018, 2021, 2023, and 2024.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Annika Berry in the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART) with assistance from Alix Norton in 2025, with initial processing conducted by Maureen Carey in 2011. Nearly all titles in this collection were derived from the original folder titles as received from the donor. Original folders were used when they were deemed to be serviceable, in order to retain as much materiality and context as possible. Digital files were transferred from carriers and hard drives in 2018 and 2024. Some files were not able to be transferred from the carriers due to technical constraints. Duplicate files, personnel records of other parties, and other out of scope files were removed in 2025. Digital files were not reformatted, and file names are original to the creator, with the exception of some characters (including [ ] . $ • &) which were replaced with an underscore ( _ ) during processing. Original disks were retained and are included in the collection. See Digital Files series processing information note for more information.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection is arranged in seven series:
- Series 1: Teaching files
- Series 2: Writings and publication files
- Series 3: Research files
- Series 4: Conferences, lectures, and interviews
- Series 5: Correspondence
- Series 6: Biographical materials
- Series 7: Digital files
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection open for research. Audiovisual media is unavailable until reformatted. Digital files are available in the UCSC Special Collections and Archives reading room. Some files may require reformatting before they can be accessed. Technical limitations may hinder the Library's ability to provide access to some digital files. Access to digital files on original carriers is prohibited; users must request to view access copies. Contact Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access to audiovisual media and digital files.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by Donna Haraway. Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.
- Preferred citation:
-
Donna Haraway papers. UA 42. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.
- Location of this collection:
-
Special Collections and Archives, University Library1156 High StreetSanta Cruz, CA 95064, US
- Contact:
- (831) 459-2547