The Heresies Project

The fourth issue of Heresies, "Women's Traditional Arts: The Politics of Aesthetics" (1978) represents the challenges that the Collective was beginning to face - that producing a journal wasn't always aligned with their principles, and the recognition that there are tensions between collaboration and publication: "How could we collectively make a magazine that represented us all? How comfortable were we with each other's voices, with each other's images, with each other's ideas?" (From the Editorial Group)

The process of editing the issue, as described by the Group, aligns with the process of considering how the Bucknell Heresies Project should undertake the digitization and presentation of the materials within the issue. We struggled with how to annotate the texts deeply, revealing the women who not only produced the issue but those who were invoked in those pages. But at the same time, we have tried to find ways to manage the multimodality of the original pieces in ways that showed respect for the original editorial decisions that were made with regard to the interleaving and interpolation of text and image, and how we could reintroduce this in hypermedial ways that continue to elude us.

Heresies is a feminist publication on art and politics, first conceived in 1975 in New York City by a small collective of women, and inspired by the developments of the 1970s feminist movement. The organizing body—the “Mother Collective”—included artists, critics, and activists who came together to produce a journal that would publish exclusively feminist work. Their goal was to present diverse perspectives, stimulate dialogue, and, most importantly, create a platform for yet-unheard female voices.

During their active years, spanning from 1977 to 1993, Heresies produced 27 issues that included essays, artwork, poems, and other visual media. Pieces in a given issue fall under one central topic or theme, chosen by the editorial team for their respective issue. Themes range from women and violence to music, community, lesbianism, film, sex, racism, and satire. Every issue also contains an original design concept specific to the editorial team responsible for its production.

The Heresies Project at Bucknell University is a holistic research experience dedicated to the recovery, recuperation, and preservation of the Heresies Journal. Like many other individuals whose groundbreaking ideas, artworks, and perspectives have been overlooked because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, or class, many of Heresies’ contributors have been lost to history. We aim to illuminate these marginalized voices through collaborative digital humanities research. Through the creation of accessible spaces for the circulation of feminist ideology in LEAF (Linked Editing Academic Framework), we advance these contributors’ presences within academia. Our efforts are extremely pertinent: we’re expanding art history and political canons beyond a constraining patriarchal framework.