[Personal_archives] Welcome to our SISPA discussion

[Hobbs Catherine]

Good morning,


I am very pleased to welcome Maryanne Dever (of Monash University) to
the personal archives listserv.  Today is the beginning of a weeklong
open discussion of issues arising from our reading of her articles.  I
hope many questions and examples from our own work have come to mind and
that these can be bandied about this week.   (Just a reminder to
participants to send replies and questions to the entire list and not
just the last speaker). 


So to begin the discussion... 
Maryanne, it's wonderful to have you with us.  Thank you for agreeing to
participate.  I was a real pleasure to reread your articles in
preparation for this, particularly because you have such a way of
enticing the reader with vivid examples in combination with
well-informed interpretation and criticism of existing assumptions how
we approach archives. 


One of the most important themes arising in both articles, and a good
place to start I think, is the idea of the "fissured archive" that is
that the archival fonds which is brought into the archives is (as you
put it) like a fishnet...  threads "held taut over pockets of
nothingness".  That the personal life is always, inevitably more than
the sum of the remains and inevitably ineffable. 


As Carol Shields put it in her novel Small Ceremonies, 
"So much of a man's life is lived inside his own head, that it is
impossible to encompass a personality. There is never enough material.
Sometimes I read in the newspaper that some university or library has
bought hundreds and hundreds of boxes of letters and papers connected
with some famous deceased person, and I know every time that it's never
going to be enough, its hopeless, so why even try?"   
(Couldn't resist one of my favourite quotes!)


There are other aspects which you discuss to show how this fissured
archives is further complicated such as the role of chance and the
self-censorship and role playing of the creator.


So how do you think that you as a scholar interpreting archives and we
as archivists should approach this fragmentary, shifting ice floe?  I
wonder if you could comment further  on how to 'live with ambiguity' ? 


Catherine  


(SISPA Chair)
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