Responding to Tomorrow’s Dilemmas
Seminar Leaders
Candace Epps-Robertson, University of North Carolina
Ann George, Texas Christian Univeristy
Tarez Samra Graban, Florida State University
In this seminar, which will use Penn State’s Special Collections as a jumping off point for projects and discussion, participants will explore several methodological practices that feminist historiographers are developing to (1) respond to calls for decolonizing archival practices and (2) reimagine and expand conventional notions of archives and archival scholarship. Together we will theorize and practice new ways to continue vital recovery work so that our histories responsibly represent a wider range of voices, subjects, genres, and texts drawn from more diverse sources and able to address more diverse historical concerns. We will discuss how and why archival work must move beyond traditional notions of recovery and scholarly publication, shifting our focus to pedagogy, public activism, the construction of new archives, and the negotiation of digital and transnational archival spaces. In addition to the dilemmas participants may encounter in their own archival projects, questions we will take up include:
- What unique concerns define our present archival moment? What methods or practices might we renew and refresh in order to meet those concerns?
- What historiographic methodologies allow feminist scholars to compose more inclusive histories of rhetoric? Given the goal of creating more inclusive histories, how can archival researchers avoid colonizing others’ texts, while ethically representing themselves and their subjects in their work?
- How do we identify and study archival materials not housed in traditional institutional archives—held, for instance, by community members? How/what can we learn from everyday people who curate family, fandom, or community archives?
- How can we identify, document, and honor the “invisible” labor of people whose texts may not circulate publicly or widely?
- How can researchers develop critical reading practices of archives as built spaces—asking what materials are there, how they came to be there, whose standpoints they reflect, and whose interests they serve?
- What connections can we make between archival scholarship and activism?
Note: This seminar has limited space for remote participation.
Candace Epps-Robertson, assistant professor of English at University of North Carolina, has worked with archives for both research and teaching, and she is working to co-design community archives around a pop culture fandom.
Ann George, professor of English at Texas Christian University, has written about archives for thirty years, most recently in Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change: A Critical Companion, which uses autoethnography to explore the constructed nature of archival accounts.
Tarez Samra Graban, associate professor of English at Florida State University, frequently teaches students in and about archives and archival representation, and is currently conducting transnational research on archives in former Commonwealth nations.