[Personal_archives] FW: FW: Re: 'the fragmentary, shifting ice floe'

[Barriault Marcel]

Hi everyone,

I too have been enjoying this discussion immensely, and despite the
sense of trepidation that I share with other people who have already
posted comments, I thought I would add to the discussion.

In rereading all the posts, I am interested in the idea of fragmented
archives and gaps (particularly in Maryanne's compelling example of Page
DuBois's writing on Sappho), and the tension between the right to
privacy and the desire to know (as mentioned by Rodney). 

Perhaps it was the allusion to Sappho, or perhaps it was my own interest
in the archives of the gay lesbian bisexual and transgender (GLBT)
communities, but I found myself reflecting on how this discussion
relates directly to homosexual records (or "homotextuality").

In his landmark study on the history of homosexuality in Canada, The
Regulation of Desire -- Sexuality in Canada, Canadian sociologist Gary
Kinsman acknowledges the lack of archival sources on the subject. He
writes: "Because of the organized 'private' or 'personal' character of
intimate sexual relations there has been little public record of
same-gender sex aside from the 'deviant' or 'criminal' behaviour found
in police records, government reports, newspaper articles, medical and
psychiatric discourse, and sex advice literature. Since same-gender
eroticism was stigmatized, historically valuable diaries and letters
have not been preserved. The voices of those people engaged in
same-gender sex have thereby been silenced." (Kinsman, The Regulation of
Desire, 1987, p. 66). 

More recently, American playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein has
written much more virulently on the topic. In his foreword to Out Plays
-- Landmark Gay and Lesbian Plays of the Twentieth Century, he observes:
"History offers few records of homosexuals as a people. There are
individuals who've left traces, but only extraordinary lives are
remembered in histories, so what good are they at telling us who we
everyday gays are? ... Where are our records? Our lives seem to be
evidenced only in the fecal materials of lawsuits, police files and
pornography. For most of history, our everyday lives were cloaked in
shame and secrecy." (Harvey Fierstein, Out Plays -- Landmark Gay and
Lesbian Plays of the Twentieth Century, Ed. Ben Hodges, 2008, p. xi).

It is as though archives as bodies of knowledge seemingly excluded
knowledge of the body. Or at best, they presented fragmented bodies. As
has been stated in the discussion so far, there is of course an act of
self-censorship on the part of the records creators, but the creators
themselves are not the only ones guilty of mutilating the homosexual
body. Some archival fonds of prominent Canadians are donated to archival
institutions after their deaths by bereaved family members. In some
cases, the families have expurgated the collections of any evidence of
same-gender sexual activity. But there is much anecdotal evidence from
the profession itself to demonstrate that archivists have also been
complicit in this censorship. Some archivists have alerted a donor's
heirs to the presence in the fonds of compromising letters or of other
documents pointing to homosexual desire, which has led to these
documents being returned to the donor's family or destroyed with the
family's permission. The deceased donor no longer has a voice of his/hew
own, and the archivist and the donor's family speaks on his/her behalf,
so often the donor's sexuality is often recast along heteronormative
lines.

Thanks for your thoughts on this interesting subject. As I indicated
previously, I am very much enjoying the discussion!

Marcel Barriault