Opening Keynote – Teresa Helena Moreno
Tuesday, June 10, 2025 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EST
Teresa Helena Moreno (she/her/ella) is an assistant professor and librarian for Black studies and the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Her scholarship critically interrogates library practices and the role of libraries as cultural institutions. Through applying methodologies and theories found in feminist studies and ethnic studies, her interdisciplinary research critically examines the impact of libraries and information on the knowledge and intellectual traditions of the global majority. Her recent publications connect abolitionist praxis to librarianship by evaluating the criminalization of information through critical information literacy as well as how libraries can enact carceral care. Currently she is writing a monograph that seeks to understand how Library of Congress subject headings impact information about diasporic and minoritized communities. Prior to her mid-career shift to librarianship, she co-ran the administration of the Black studies department and taught in the gender studies program at UIC. While not researching libraries and information, you can catch her around Chicago enjoying musical theater and opera.
Under the Western Eye: Information, Epistemicide, and Spirit Murder
With what initially started as a question about how subject headings worked with diasporic populations, Teresa Helena Moreno set off on a journey to understand and critically examine the institution of libraries and information within the formation of knowledge, which spurred yet more questions about information imperialism and epistemicide / knowledge murder.
To understand how we have come to center the west to such a staggering degree, this keynote will explore how the west works with information and, critically, how the west has colonized information itself and committed epistemicide through criminalizing information and even determining how we as a field think about what qualifies as information.
Moderated by Symphony Bruce, Critical Pedagogy Librarian, New York University Libraries