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

[Maryanne Dever]

Hi everyone,

Thanks, Marcel, for your posting. That was really interesting. A 
couple of things. I have found the work on Ann Cvetkovich really 
interesting on this question. I realise I only make reference to one 
of her articles in the Garbo essay, but her monograph is even more 
useful for this: An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian 
Public Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Your point about the paucity of sources for writing a history of the 
everyday is interesting too because it also begsthe question of what 
might constitute source material as well. I’m thinking of the debate 
about teh vexed nature of evidence in histories of sexuality ie what 
constitutes documentary 'evidence' or source material in this realm. 
There is a tension for historians in the area of LGBT work who want on 
the one hand to refuse the excessive burden of proof often required 
(ie heterosexuality is assumed so its required documentary proofs are 
minimal at best) to argue for someone's identity as non-heterosexual 
at the same time as seeking that documentary record in order to write 
that historical account. [There’s lots on this topic but see Sheila 
Jeffreys’ ‘Does it matter if they did it?’ in Lesbian History Group, 
eds. “Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History 1840-1875”. 
London: Women’s Press, 1989).]

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: Barriault Marcel <Marcel.Barriault at lac-bac.gc.ca>
Date: Friday, April 25, 2008 0:27 am
Subject: [Personal_archives]  FW:  FW:   Re:  'the fragmentary, 
shifting ice floe'
To: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu

> 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 
> interestin 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 
> archivalinstitutions 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/hewown, 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           
> 
>  
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> 
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