[Personal_archives] Archivists, ethics, privacy and the everyday
Maryanne Dever
Maryanne.Dever at arts.monash.edu.au
Thu Apr 24 11:42:11 EDT 2008
HI Everyone,
Wow! I think those are really juicy issues! I love it! I'm responding
here initiallly to points from Amy, Robert and Heather in the first
instance. More to follow
I think that – given how much critical attention is being given
to ‘going backstage in the archives’ as Antoinette Burton says – it is
inevitable that the role of the archivist should also come under some
kind of scrutiny. I rather like Martha Cooley’s novel “The Archivist”
for its take on this subject.
Mike Featherstone in his essay ‘Archive’ talks of how it is both
archivists and researchers who together -- in working with papers --
‘create the maps and record the journeys into the archive that
produce the images we have of the possibilities of the material’.
[Mike Featherstone, ‘Archive’, Theory, Culture and Society 23: 2-3
(2006)]. I guess it would be interesting for me as a researcher to
have more access to exactly what happens once a collection reaches an
institution. I've certainly worked on papers that were initially
fairly 'untouched' and then were more systematically ordered after a
period of some years -- and the effect on how I saw that collection
was quite dramatic. The individual involved suffered from a series of
nervous breakdowns and the chaos I originally saw in the papers seemed
to mirror this. Once they were tidied and reordered, 'she' suddenly
looked different too. Similarly, I worked on the papers of the
Fellowship of Australian writers at the Mitchell
Library in Sydney. They were just unsorted boxes but several of us
were working on them and I would come back and find the material in a
particularly box been up-ended and -- apart from practical horrors at
not being able to find particular items again readily -- the new
conjunctions of material meant that the reading experience kept
changing.
I was trying to enumerate the various layers involved here in the
introduction to our forthcoming co-authored book, “The Intimate
Archive”. In thinking about how a collection is shaped before
researchers enter the picture, I was figuring on the following: It is
shaped initially by the original donor (who may or may not be the
creator) through their choice of the materials to be lodged with a
particular institution. And as you noted, donors get to exercise the
prerogative of property (and we can think here of Ted Hughes’
destruction of Sylvia Plath’s final diaries). I was reading an essay
at the weekend on collecting where the point was made about the
transition from private to public hands and how the meanings that
attach to objects 'shift when they enter a collection because
collections produce knowledge in particular ways...the object also
gains the status of being worthy of collection and enters into
relationships with items in that collection'. [Josephine Mills, 'Modus
Operandi' in Josephine Mills and Nancy Tousley, "On Collecting".
Lethbridge, Alberta: University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2004, pp. 9-
14.] Donated materials are then obviously shaped by archivists in the
course of ordering and cataloguing the material. Then an individual
collection may also be subject to restrictions (put in place, for
example, by creators, donors or copyright holders) which limit reader
access to all or part of a collection, again implicitly re-shaping the
publicly available archive. The sheer fragility of particular items
can place certain elements of an individual collection beyond the
reach of readers too. What else would be in that list?
I think those are really interesting comments on the privacy question:
I’ve been conscious in the various papers I’ve looked at that I was
seeing personal documents that the individuals who created them were
not aware were preserved in this manner. Garbo almost certainly would
not have wanted those letters available. And you probably noticed I
didn’t quote directly from any: that is because the Estate doesn’t
give permission for them to be quoted in print. I made a routine
request and didn’t even get a reply. Each set of correspondence within
the de Acosta papers was closed until 10 yrs after the death of the
individual concerned. I also worked as a research assistant on a large
set of papers that were donated by a prominent (living) Australian
author who had donated ‘whatever was in the attic’. The papers went
first to the office of an academic who was writing a biography (I was
the RA) and were then headed for the National Library. I found a set
of quite anguished letters
from the writer’s first wife (about child support payments etc) that
the author probably had forgotten – they didn’t paint him in a
flattering light so I’m assuming that he hadn’t actively preserved
them for posterity -- and which the former wife would have been
mortified to have realized were preserved in a public collection. This
kind of relates to the point about ethics as well. In this instance I
drew these letters to the attention of the manuscript librarian when
the papers were leaving the university for the Nat. Library (obviously
they would have found them anyway) and suggested they might get back
in touch with the author -- who hadn’t requested any restrictions --
and see what they might do. But I think that question of ethics is a
live one and especially for those who didn't make the decision to have
their papers preserved in that way. (I remember the protagonist
in "The Archivist" wonders why ‘the writer’s hunger for privacy [is]
always less compelling than the re
ader’s appetite – voracious, insatiable – for more words?’ (p.322) And
I’m fascinated by the very fine line that sometimes separates
legitimate scholarly intent from plain old voyeurism.)
Thanks, Rob, for your comments on the Garbo paper. I think the point
you make about *when* couples write -- ie when they are apart -- is
such an obvious but often overlooked one. Margaret Harris' edition of
the letters between novelist Christina Stead and her husband, Bill
Blake, is a nice example of this. They were together for decades and
apart at quite specific points in those years and those are the
letters we have. Often they are anxious letters -- about money, for
example, as it was often the prospect of well paid work that would
take one or other away -- but sometimes it is the swapping of quite
banal detail that is in fact the mark of their intimacy. I'm quite
taken by collections of letters that fail to deliver what we first
expect or want them to because that becomes for me the moment to start
unpacking what my expectations were and how they shaped my reading of
the correspondence. I make the point in a section of 'The Intimate
Archive' where I don't find love lett
ers in any conventional sense between Barnard and Davison that we have
plenty of ways to talk about that seemingly revelatory moment when one
stumbles upon a piece that appears to resolve the puzzle -- but we
tend to lack a suitable language to frame the concept of
archival 'failure', let alone ways to think about whether the
archive 'failed' me or I had failed it (in the assumptions and
expectations that I brought to it). We don't feel duly rewarded by the
everyday, I suspect, when that is what we find.
Cheers,
Maryanne
--
Assoc. Prof. Maryanne Dever
Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, Monash University,
Melbourne
President, Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA)
Visiting Scholar, McGill Center for Research and Teaching on Women
(MCRTW), Apr-Jun 2008
Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women's Studies
University of Ottawa, Jan-Mar 2008
Mailing Address:
Centre for Women's Studies & Gender Research
School of Political & Social Inquiry
Faculty of Arts
Monash University
Victoria 3800 AUSTRALIA
Tel. 61 3 99053259
Fax. 61 3 99052410
http://arts.monash.edu.au/womens-studies/
----- Original Message -----
From: Hobbs Catherine <catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca>
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008 5:19 am
Subject: [Personal_archives] FW: Singular moments and some destruction
To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> Hi Everyone,
> To pick up on the discussion of the past day (I've really enjoyed
> "listening" to everyone):
>
> I have two examples of the material evidence of co-habitation and
> reuse of archival material within a couple(with a more positive
> spin than the Plath example). The element of this which interests
> me is not so much that one poet is taking the work of another and
> scribbling on the back of it (I love the idea of "writing on the
> backside" by the way) but that this really is the material
> evidence of their co-habitation and the closeness of their life
> together. I am working on the fonds of poets Roo Borson and Kim
> Maltman right now: two collaborators. There is the same phenomena
> of one writing on the back of another's drafts. In their case it
> is not evidence of one poetic mind erasing another's work but, in
> fact, the premium placed on paper within the household. Theirs is
> a household where paper is constantly being reused. They are each
> so much in the habit that the blank bottom halves of printed off
> emails are still commandeered for reuse. What does it tell you
> about them (other than the environmental and wealth-related
> aspects?), well, that each had access to the detritus of the other
> from very early on in their personal relationship (in the the mid-
> 1970's). It tells you something of the closeness of their
> relationship and their generosity toward one another with respect
> to their poetry (equally evident in the commentary that each
> provided the other). I think that the use of Via Rail paper in
> the fonds of writer Gail Scott is also evidence of something
> similar when we consider her former lover Erin Mouré worked at
> Via.
>
> Websites present a very different challenge in regard to third
> party information and personal letters, particularly when you have
> institutions assuming that all the archives will (naturally) be
> digitized. It is only those who contribute their archives after
> the advent of the web who are even aware of the possibility of
> such wideranging broadcast and sharing of their sentiments. A
> letter may not be under closure and be open to researchers on site
> but the intention of the donor was never to make it simultaneously
> available to the world at large with a click of the mouse.
>
> Amy: I thought that this was a very important comment, "I tend to
> think that this is the crux of personal archives: that they
> resemble creative works" (I am reminded of Anne Benichou's paper
> given at the Taking a Stand Conference about the archives of
> Melvin Cherney where the archives were seen as a critical and
> artistic practice). It gets at a few issues for me: first that
> there is a freedom of the creator in the intention to create, and
> in the creation and keeping of documents that can allow different
> meanings and different modes of expression. One of the reasons
> why I liked Maryanne's discussion of the "fort-da" dynamic with
> Garbo calling de Acosta to her and sending her away in order to
> reinforce the dynamic of their relationship is that it tells us
> that archives are performative and that the dynamic of the
> archives can mimic aspects of the creator's psychology. How do we
> see that the creation and dissemination of archives are creative
> acts and are also acts to construct self and relationships?
>
> On the side of working practice: Maryanne, there are ways in
> which archival description allows archivists to describe links
> between fonds both within the same institution and to those at
> another institutions. I rarely see this done, your example of
> Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw shows us the importance of
> doing so.
>
> Looking forward to more.
>
> Catherine
>
>
>
> Catherine Hobbs,
> Archivist, Literary Archives (English-language)
> Library and Archives Canada
> WS 598, 550 Blvd de la Cité
> Gatineau, QC, K1A 0N4
>
> Tel: (819) 934-8331 Fax: (819) 934-8333
> e-mail: catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
> [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of
> Maryanne Dever
> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 5:04 PM
> To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] Singular moments and some
destruction
>
> I think Sylvia's point is a really important one and it comes up
> frequently in literary studies - but maybe isn't commented on very
> much. I'm thinking here of the way a particular sentiment
> expressed in a single archived letter will be quoted as though it
> represented a enduring life philosophy rather than, as you say,
> something expressed in the moment! The example that has troubled
> me is another Barnard one. Barnard maintained a correspondence for
> decades with critic Nettie Palmer and when in 1935 she learned
> from Nettie that she was keeping her letters, Barnard responded
> thus: "By the way what possessed you to tell me that you kept my
> letters? It was enough to scuttle me as a correspondent". This
> line is quoted frequently to suggest that Barnard had a "life
> long" anxiety about her letters being preserved which simply isn't
> so. She learned in the 1940s that Palmer was quoting from them in
> a published selection of her journals and was evidently quite
> chuffed. She was also cons ulted about the transfer of her letters
> to the National Library as part of the Palmers' papers and she not
> only appears to have agreed but later drew people's attention to
them.
>
> On the conditions under which letters are sometimes written (and
> how this affects handwriting, choice of stationery etc) I always
> like this description Barnard gives of her letter-writing habits:
>
> At one o'clock in the morning I'm liable to say anything. I'm
> writing in bed, the lamp carefully draped with a dark blue slip so
> that my family shall not see it and come to reproach me for
> getting a little more out of the day than they think proper. A
> devious creature but I must milk the night if I'm to get any time
> to myself.
> Marjorie Barnard to Nettie Palmer, 30 March 1939.
>
> Barnard was 41 years old at this point! Her worst handwriting is
> when she is writing on the morning ferry.
>
>
> On the question of destruction/survival and material literacy,
> there
> is a very interesting essay by Lynda K. Bundtzen, 'Poetic Arson
> and
> Sylvia Plath's "Burning the Letters"' which I've just found. She
> talks
> about how 'acts of textual violence or abuse [destruction of each
> other's work/papers] ...were...habitual in the Plath-Hughes
> marriage.' She
> then talks about how when Smith College rare books collction
> purchased
> some of Plath's papers they also received parts of Hughes' papers
> because Plath had written her work on discarded of Hughes'.
> Bundtzen
> writes: "Many of her final poems are written on his backside, so
> to
> speak: Plath recycles old manuscripts and typescripts by Hughes,
> and
> often she seems to be back talking, having the last word in an
> argument. The friction between these two bodies is palpable at
> times,
> as text clashes with text, and one intuits Plath's purposeful
> coercion
> and filleting of Hughes's poems and plays as she composes ... If
> Plath's "rare" body is skillfully
> re-membered for public viewing and scholarly dissection, Hughes'
> seems
> at times hopelessly dismembered, scattered and disordered. Her
> words
> are on top and one peeks at the other side, often finding her ink
> has
> bled through, indelibly splotching and staining Hughes' work'.
>
> (That essay is in Anita Helle, ed. "The Unravelling Archive:
> Essays on
> Sylvia Plath". Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press, 2007, pp.236-53.)
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Maryanne
>
> --
> Assoc. Prof. Maryanne Dever
> Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, Monash University,
> Melbourne
> President, Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA)
>
> Visiting Scholar, McGill Center for Research and Teaching on Women
> (MCRTW), Apr-Jun 2008
>
> Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women's Studies
> University of Ottawa, Jan-Mar 2008
>
> Mailing Address:
> Centre for Women's Studies & Gender Research
> School of Political & Social Inquiry
> Faculty of Arts
> Monash University
> Victoria 3800 AUSTRALIA
>
> Tel. 61 3 99053259
> Fax. 61 3 99052410
> http://arts.monash.edu.au/womens-studies/
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Hobbs Catherine <catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca>
> Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:14 am
> Subject: [Personal_archives] FW: FW: Re: 'the fragmentary,
> shifting ice floe'
> To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
>
> > Aha! That's a strong draw from my perspective as well...
> ...what
> > does "material literacy" as Maryanne and others (like Ala
> Rekrut)
> > call it indicate about state of mind? Are we not a forensic
> > profession in a very strong sense? Can we not look for motive
> and
> > the state of mind of the documentor at the particular moment in
> > time... (when the clues are there)?
> >
> > I am reminded of a wonderful group of letters held here between
> > novelist Elizabeth Smart and her friend Didy Asquith. The
> letters
> > are in pencil, written hastily in pages torn from small
> notebooks
> > while ES was looking after her three young children on a farm in
> > Ireland. The letters contain many references to her poverty
> > (having to feed her children on boiled nettles, for example) and
> > her lover George Barker's repeated visits (one where he racks up
> > an immense bar bill at the local pub which ES has no hope of
> > paying off). The content is important to understanding her
> > psychology but it is made ever more present and ever more
> > momentary when you notice the crescent shaped finger nail holes
> > which ES has made along the side of a number of the sheets.
> >
> > I love the fact that you situate the creator at a particular
> > moment in his/her present.
> >
> > Catherine
> >
> >
> > Catherine Hobbs,
> > Archivist, Literary Archives (English-language)
> > Library and Archives Canada
> > WS 598, 550 Blvd de la Cité
> > Gatineau, QC, K1A 0N4
> >
> > Tel: (819) 934-8331 Fax: (819) 934-8333
> > e-mail: catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: SYLVIA LASSAM [mailto:sylvialassam at rogers.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 1:56 PM
> > To: Hobbs Catherine
> > Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] FW: Re: 'the fragmentary,
> > shifting ice floe'
> >
> >
> > Good afternoon,
> >
> > One of two things have occured to me while reading the comments
> > from Catherine and Maryanne. Not only is our documentation
> > fragmentary, but our sense of a letter-writer's persona is
> > reflective of a very particular place and time, of which we may
> > know nothing. The moment a specific letter was written is
> > dependant on so many things, including the writer's mood, the
> > swirl of activity surrounding them (or not), important events
> they
> > may assume their reader is aware of... There's a real danger, I
> > think, that archivists and researchers may extrapolate too much,
> > and make too many assumptions, from any one surviving letter.
> >
> > On a practical note, as a way to help researchers contextualize
> > the document, we might want to consider a description of the
> > physical object if it throws any light on the contents of the
> > letter, especially if we can compare it to others. Was it
> written
> > in haste, carefully typed on nice stationery, can the envelope
> > tell us of a temporary re-location? In other words, the
> physical
> > presentation may give us clues to the writer's state of mind
> > and/or frame the recipient's initial reaction.
> >
> > I'm enjoying this immensely so far.
> >
> > Sylvia Lassam
> > Archives of Ontario
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Hobbs Catherine <catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca>
> > To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 9:03:27 AM
> > Subject: [Personal_archives] FW: Re: 'the fragmentary, shifting
> > ice floe'
> >
> > Good morning,
> >
> > For my part, I agree with du Bois' propositions which you've
> > outlined and think that this approach is very transferrable to
> the
> > archivist. >From this perspective, archivists need to
> foreground
> > the facts that the fonds which survives is fragmentary. This
> > means including details in archival appraisal and description
> > about the decisions and forces which made the fonds fragmentary
> in
> > the first place.
> >
> > For my part, I do spend time asking creative writers if there
> was
> > a time when they made a decision not to create documents or
> > decided to destroy documents, or when moving house or moving a
> job
> > (or a break in in their car) meant that part of their records
> were
> > lost. It seems to me that archivists are understanding of this
> > when it comes to judging the rarety of what survives but they
> > don't transfer this part of the story to the researcher through
> > archival description all that often. I guess there is also the
> > next layer where part of the story becomes the creator's
> > relationship to what was lost. Was the fragmenting a decision
> to
> > act (such as a bonfire which has never been regretted) or is the
> > creator mourning the loss of certain documents because they
> relate
> > to an earlier self and take on an ideal form? These additional
> > elements can help us to see the psychology of the documentor and
> > hence better reveal the fonds.
> >
> > Of course, as the ability to "read fragmentarily" suggests, we
> > need to be clear that there are gaps even when there is no clue
> to
> > their context.
> >
> > (The Sylvia Plath example reminds me of the novel Swann by Carol
> > Shields, black comedy where the scholars are ransacking the
> > fragmentary archives of a murdered (in fact dismembered) poet
> > whose ouevre was naive or possibly completely talentless--sorry,
> > the literary references keep coming).
> >
> > Other thoughts on the practical aspects of this or reflections
> on
> > particular archival fonds?
> >
> > Catherine
> >
> > Catherine Hobbs,
> > Archivist, Literary Archives (English-language)
> > Library and Archives Canada
> > WS 598, 550 Blvd de la Cité
> > Gatineau, QC, K1A 0N4
> >
> > Tel: (819) 934-8331 Fax: (819) 934-8333
> > e-mail: catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
> > [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of
> > Maryanne Dever
> > Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 7:16 PM
> > To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> > Subject: [Personal_archives] Re: 'the fragmentary, shifting ice
> floe'>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Hello. Thanks for the opportunity to participate in this. I'm
> > really looking forward to the discussion over the week.
> >
> > So, how to approach 'the fragmentary, shifting ice floe'? And
> how
> > to live with ambiguity?
> >
> > On this question I've been really intrigued by the work of
> > classics scholar, Page duBois, which I've found quite productive
> > when pondering this. I thinking here of her book 'Sappho is
> > Burning' (University of Chicago Press, 1995). While those of us
> > who work on contemporary literary subjects and their personal
> > papers might be able to avoid confronting the question of the
> > fragmentary nature of the material we find in the archives, as a
> > classical scholar working with the fragments of ancient texts
> > (such as surviving portions of Sappho's lyric poems), duBois has
> > no choice but to address the question pretty much head-on. This
> is
> > why I find her work so refreshing.
> >
> > She writes of how our attention to the artefacts of the past is
> > inevitably shaped by a desire that is precisely 'a longing for
> > what we cannot have' (p.33). DuBois is more than familiar with
> > the epistemological challenges routinely thrown up by contending
> > with 'broken things', those 'bits of the past assembled for our
> > gaze through random events and destruction and discovery' (p.
> 31).
> > (This is a little bit like what Jacqueline Rose talks about in
> her
> > book 'The Haunting of Sylvia Plath' where -- drawing on
> > psychoanalytic frameworks -- she characterizes Plath's archive
> in
> > particular - as the 'corps morcele' or body-in-bits-and-pieces -
> -
> > as opposed to the fantasy of corporeal unity. Rose is
> interested,
> > in the same way as DuBois I think, in how to contend with an
> > archive that is 'scattered and broken'.)
> >
> > du Bois highlights the extent to which researchers involved in
> > various kinds of archival work consciously and unconsciously
> > understand themselves as agents of recovery and reconstitution,
> > despite the impossibility of such projects in the face of 'what
> is
> > in fact irrevocably lost'. She contends that we ought to examine
> > more closely our insistent drive to 'mend' the past, to make it
> > 'whole' in the face of its fragmented and dismembered material
> > legacy. DuBois suggests that what we need to do is to hold that
> > 'dream of wholeness' in tension with our recognition of what is
> > irretrievable.
> >
> > What I take from duBois is that the skill we have to learn is to
> > how to 'read fragmentarily'. I think this links to the question
> > of 'ambiguity' or perhaps to 'contingency'. As
> literary/historical
> > researchers we have to realize that when we build a narrative
> from
> > the assembled fragments in an archive, for all that we have
> > invested in the idea of ourselves as playing a restorative role,
> > we are essentially putting pieces together to tell our stories,
> > not accessing some fully-formed story that lies there waiting
> for
> > us. In short, the fragments gain their evidentiary status -
> their
> > seeming significance and seeming coherence - primarily from the
> > ways in which they are incorporated into our stories. The
> > challenge as I see it is how to make that contingent element
> > manifest in what I write.
> >
> > I'll start with that for now and come back to those other
> elements
> > (the role of chance and the self-censorship and role playing of
> > the creator question) next.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Maryanne
> >
> > --
> > Assoc. Prof. Maryanne Dever
> > Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, Monash
> University,
> > Melbourne President, Australian Women's and Gender Studies
> > Association (AWGSA)
> >
> > Visiting Scholar, McGill Center for Research and Teaching on
> Women
> > (MCRTW), Apr-Jun 2008
> >
> > Bank of Montreal Visiting Scholar in Women's Studies University
> of
> > Ottawa, Jan-Mar 2008
> >
> > Mailing Address:
> > Centre for Women's Studies & Gender Research School of Political
> &
> > Social Inquiry Faculty of Arts Monash University Victoria 3800
> > AUSTRALIA
> > Tel. 61 3 99053259
> > Fax. 61 3 99052410
> > http://arts.monash.edu.au/womens-studies/
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Hobbs Catherine <catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca>
> > Date: Monday, April 21, 2008 10:55 pm
> > Subject: [Personal_archives] Welcome to our SISPA discussion
> > To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> >
> > > 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
> > > nevergoing 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)
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Personal_archives mailing list
> > Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> > http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/personal_archives
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Personal_archives mailing list
> Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/personal_archives
>
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