The University’s Special Collections are available to all students in the University. The collections include rare books, manuscripts, records, letters, photographs, maps and drawings. Use the search box below to find specific items on the Enterprise catalogue.
The Special Collections Service is based on the London Road campus, in the same building as the Museum of English Rural Life. Items from the Special Collections cannot be borrowed, but they can be consulted in the reading room. You’re advised to plan ahead and contact Special Collections prior to your visit, so that we can have the material ready for you for when you arrive.
The following collections may be relevant to your research.
All of the archives listed above are imprints of Random House, and access to these archives is granted by Penguin Random House - more information about this process can be found on the Random House page.
Other collections
There are a few items in the University History Archive that discuss homosexuality:
The little red schoolbook (1969) offered alternative advice to teenagers on topics ranging from school, sex, and drugs, and predicted that “the time will come when homosexual marriages are recognised”. It was the subject of some controversy at the time it was published and censored in several countries.
The following articles related to this title may be of interest:
If you would like to make use of the University's Special Collections for your dissertation research, a good place to start would be the Subject Explorer guides. This guide has been created to help you make use of the University of Reading Special Collections in your dissertation.
Overview from the Curator and Assistant Curator of the Ure Museum:
The museum collection (both displayed and stored objects: the gem casts in particular in the latter, hidden categories) is rife with iconography that might be useful in studies of / approaches to gender, the history of LGBTQIA+ ideology, non-binary human representation and gender fluidity and sexualities.
The display is subtly demarcated into feminine spheres (the west side of the museum) and masculine spheres (the east side of the museum) yet without any labels indicating such because the Curators recognise that such a demarcation is based on ancient Greek ideas about gender roles that might not map onto all ancient let alone modern societies.
LGBTQIA+ issues have been highlighted in recent exhibits in connection with the Winckelmann Jubilees and projects done by the Museum Studies students.
The University of Reading's institutional repository for research publications has a range of LGBTQIA+-related material. These are just a few examples. For more, search CentAUR:
CentAUR (Central Archive at the University of Reading) is the University of Reading's institutional repository for research publications and equivalent research outputs.
Auchmuty, R. (2015) Feminist approaches to sexuality and law scholarship. Legal Information Management, 15 (1). pp. 4-7. ISSN 1472-6696
Brauner, D. (2015) Queering Philip Roth: homosocial discourse in 'An actor’s life for me', 'Letting go', 'Sabbath’s theater' and the 'American trilogy'. Studies in the Novel, 48 (1). pp. 86-106. ISSN 1934-1512
Evangelista, S. and Harloe, K. (2017) Pater’s ‘Winckelmann’: aesthetic criticism and classical reception. In: Martindale, C., Prettejohn, E. and Evangelista, S. (eds.) Pater the Classicist. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 63-80. ISBN 9780198723417
Faloppa, F. (2017) PC or not PC? Some reflections upon political correctness and its influence on the Italian language. In: Cultural Change Through Language and Narrative: Italy and the USA. Legenda, Oxford.
Jones, R. H. (2007) Imagined comrades and imaginary protections. Journal of Homosexuality, 53 (3). pp. 83-115. ISSN 0091-8369
Jones, R. H. (2005) You show me yours, I'll show you mine': the negotiation of shifts from textual to visual modes in computer-mediated interaction among gay men. Visual Communication, 4 (1). pp. 69-92. ISSN 1470-3572
Lesnik-Oberstein, K. (2019) Childhood, children’s literature and (trans)gender identity in current western discourse. In: Zhu, Z. (ed.) A Collection of Lectures on Children's Literature by Renowned Scholars. China Social Sciences Press, Jinan, China.
Lesnik-Oberstein, K. (2010) Childhood, queer theory and feminism. Feminist Theory, 11 (3). pp. 309-321. ISSN 1741-2773
McKinnon, C. (2003) Tolerance and the character of pluralism. In: McKinnon, C. and Castiglione, D. (eds.) The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies. Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 54-70. ISBN 9780719080623
Maddrell, A., Strauss, K., Thomas, N. J. and Wyse, S. (2016) Mind the gap: gender disparities still to be addressed in UK Higher Education geography. Area, 48 (1). pp. 48-56. ISSN 1475-4762
Stoneley, P. (2014) 'Looking at the Others': Oscar Wilde and the Reading Gaol Archive. Journal of Victorian Culture, 19 (4). pp. 457-480. ISSN 1750-0133
Stoneley, P. (2011) ‘The fellows from the Fogg’: modernism, homosexuality, and art-world authority'. New England Quarterly, 84 (3). pp. 473-495. ISSN 0028-4866
Tryfonidou, A. (2018) The legal position of LGBT persons and same-sex couples in Cyprus. The Cyprus Review, 29 (1). pp. 183-213. ISSN 2547-8974
Zanghellini, A. (2018) Children’s welfare, religious freedom, LGBTQ rights, and state neutrality: a philosophical discussion, by reference to J v B and the Children and Lee v McArthur & Ors. Child and Family Law Quarterly, 2018 (2). pp. 187-203. ISSN 1358-8184
Zanghellini, A. (2009) Queer, anti-normativity, counter-normativity and abjection. Griffith Law Review, 18 (1). pp. 1-16. ISSN 1038-3441
The Sexual Constitution of Political Authority by Conference papers are published in a variety of ways - they may be published as a book, or as a special issue or supplement to a journal. Some may not be published at all!
If published promptly they can you give you the latest information on research in your field.
See our guide to finding conference papers for details of specialist sources for finding this type of information.
Reading University theses and dissertations
The Library receives a copy of all theses accepted for the degrees of PhD and MPhil by the University. All theses held by the Library can be found on the Enterprise catalogue. Recently submitted theses might also be available to download from the University's Institutional Repository, CentAUR.
Masters theses can usually be consulted in the relevant school or department.
Finding theses from other institutions
There are a number of specialist sources for finding theses produced at other institutions around the world. Many more are becoming available online making it much easier to get the full-text. For more information see our guide to finding theses.