Humanities Seminar (395-0-20)

Topic

Archives in Public

Instructors

Jayme Elizabeth Collins
jayme.collins@northwestern.edu

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 4-410: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

To whom do archives matter, and how do they matter? Archival collections are powerful resources for both scholarly and community knowledge, and yet not all communities have equal access to collections or analogous ideas about how they should be used. For this reason, archives frequently appear in a range of public humanities projects, collaborations, and initiatives. These include archival recovery and restoration projects, digitization and dissemination projects, and educational programming and skills-based community archiving workshops. In this seminar, we will explore theoretical, methodological, experimental, and practical questions about the role of archives in the public humanities. The class discussion will develop dually through readings about archives and publics and through visits to area archival institutions. Tasked with designing an archive-based public humanities project by the end of the quarter, students will be asked to work collaboratively in and with archives in community settings, and to experiment with what it means to make archives public or to connect archives with communities. Some sessions of the seminar will meet at off-campus archival institutions in Evanston and Chicago.

Class Materials (Required)

Course materials will be available on Canvas.

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for Graduate Students.