Author: Cheryl

CFP: Democratizing Knowledge: Examining Archives in the Post-custodial Era

Type: Call for Papers
Date: July 10, 2020
Location: New Jersey, United States
Subject Fields: American History / Studies, Archival Science, Cultural History / Studies, Digital Humanities, Library and Information Science
Call for Papers

Democratizing Knowledge: Examining Archives in the Post-custodial Era
November 7th, 2020 at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey

To acknowledge the archive as a construct is to understand that power, as Michel-Rolph Trouillot has argued, “is constitutive of the story.” Yet, for too long historians have operated as if the archive were a foregone conclusion, ignoring the ways in which history is a narrative shaped as profoundly by omission as by any material presence. The archiving of history rarely proceeds from the primary impact of events. Archives, rather, follow as a consequence of the “winning” of history, through processes which obscure the underlying social relations, preferencing one history over another. “Effective silencing,” Trouillot suggests, “does not require a conspiracy, nor even a political consensus. Its roots are structural.”

Trouillot is but one of a number of contemporary theorists, including Foucault and Derrida, who’ve challenged inherited archival practice, inspiring new approaches to the archive’s construction. The present post-custodial mode, for example, promises a more collaborative approach, giving voice to those previously silenced by institutional power. By shifting emphasis away from a centralized, physical archive towards digital repositories and archival networks constituted by social media and crowdsourcing, distance between the event and its commemoration collapses. Community access to and participation in the archive is prioritized, precluding institutional intervention.

The eighth annual Dean Hopper Conference seeks to bring into conversation historians, theorists, archivists and collection managers from across a range of disciplines to discuss past practice and imagine novel approaches to the archive. Thinking through the archive, broadly conceived, we ask the following: what is the future of archives? How might new archival practices foster more equitable distribution of resources? Should digital technology be more central to archives and material culture collections, rather than as a mere adjunct? What new risks threaten the production of history going forward? This conference is planned for Saturday, November 7th, 2020 at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. In the event that we will be unable to meet in person, a virtual platform is planned.

Keynote Speakers

Megan Rossman is assistant professor of communications at Purchase College and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Rossman’s films have screened at festivals including DOC NYC and Outfest. Her film Love Letter Rescue Squad won best student documentary in the Emerging Filmmakers Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival American Pavilion in 2017. Her first feature-length film The Archivettes, explores the founding and development of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the largest collection of materials by and about lesbians. The project was awarded the prestigious Princess Grace Award.

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is professor of modern culture and media at Brown University. Azoulay’s research and latest book, Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (Verso, 2019), focus on the potential history of the archive, sovereignty, art, and human rights. Potential history, a concept and an approach that she has developed over the last decade, has far-reaching implications for the fields of political theory, archival formations, and photography studies. Her books include: Civil Imagination: The Political Ontology of Photography (Verso, 2012), and The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008).

Deadline & Submissions

We invite proposals on this theme from graduate students, scholars, and professionals across the humanities. Proposals for individual papers and panels are welcome. Additionally, proposals for undergraduate poster presentations, whether based on a faculty-directed project or individual research, are also encouraged. Please send a 250-word abstract or a proposed poster, as well as a brief biography to hopper@drew.edu by July 10th. For panel proposals, please submit a 200 word panel abstract in addition to individual paper abstracts.

Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to

History of archives and archival theory

Archives and the production of memory

Strengths and weaknesses of current archival practices

Identification and exploitation of narrative silences in the archive

Archival activism or the “interventionist” archivist

The future of digital archiving

“Alternative” archives (film, art, bodies, etc.)

Museums and archival practice

Public history and curation as archival practice

The social justice imperative in archival production

The archival processing of born-digital media

Archival networking and crowdsourcing

Archives of performance, oral history, music or sound, film, etc.

Landscape or architecture as archive

Contact Info:
Please send a 250-word abstract or a proposed poster, as well as a brief biography to hopper@drew.edu by July 10th. For panel proposals, please submit a 200 word panel abstract in addition to individual paper abstracts.

Contact Email: hopper@drew.edu

CFP-Archives Month Call for History@Work COVID-19 Crisis Response Pitches

12 JUNE 2020 – 

, , , 

As part of American Archives Month, for the second year in a row, History@Work will be running an October series dedicated to publicly-engaged work by archivists and librarians in the U.S. and abroad. This year, we are recruiting pitches related to the COVID-19 crisis. Do you want to share your thoughts and experiences with us about archives and public history as it relates to the work you have been doing surrounding the COVID-19 crisis?

Archivists are important advocates of public history. However, public historians who specialize in different areas may not be familiar with archivists’ efforts to decolonize archives, assist community members interested in maintaining their own collections, and other areas of critical practice. As such, this series will focus on archival and library practice and labor as well as archives and libraries as public history. Because the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted new challenges surrounding the use and maintenance of archives, we also welcome pitches from users of archives. We see this series as an opportunity to share information and forge connections among and between archivists, their publics, and other practicing public historians.

Original blog post pitches are welcomed on a range of topics as it relates to the COVID-19 crisis, including (but not limited to):

  • Using, accessing, and providing access to archives during a pandemic
  • Community-engaged archival practice in an era of social distancing
  • Archives, digital technology, equity, and outreach during a pandemic
  • Archival work as public history (including “how-to’s”)
  • Archives as vehicles for activism
  • Archives, diversity, and inclusion
  • Archival practices, policies, and procedures during a pandemic
  • Archival work to document COVID-19
  • Behind-the-scenes posts on archival labor and how it has changed (or not) during a pandemic
  • Reflections or connections to archives-related articles published in History@Work and The Public Historian

History@Work posts are between 800 and 1200 words. Post should be written in accessible language and avoid jargon; we prefer hyperlinks and citations integrated into the text over footnotes. We strongly prefer posts that include images. You can read more about our typical editorial process and style here: https://ncph.org/history-at-work/guidelines/. You can read the 2019 Archives Month posts here.

A sample of past History@Work posts that have featured archives include:

In addition, prospective authors may choose to respond to, or get inspiration from, this sample of articles about archives from The Public Historian:

Pitches for original posts, which should be between three and five sentences long and may include images, are due by Friday, July 10, 2020. First drafts for accepted pitches are due by Monday, August 10, 2020. All posts go through peer editing. Questions and pitches can be directed to guest editor and archivist Krista McCracken at krista.mccracken@gmail.com.

View the Word and PDF versions of this Call for Pitches, and please help us by circulating widely!

~Krista McCracken is a public historian and archivist at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, as well as a member of the NCPH Board of Directors.

~Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan is a public historian and scholar of early American social history at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where she directs the undergraduate Public History Program.

~Nicole Belolan is the Co-Editor of The Public Historian and the Digital Media Editor for the National Council on Public History and is based at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers in Camden, NJ.

CFP: The Moving Image

Special issue of The Moving Image journal (vol. 21, issue 1, Spring 2021)

Activating the Archive: Audio-Visual Collections as Communal Resources for Engagement and Change

Guest editors: Eef Masson and Giovanna Fossati

Access to audio-visual collections, while a longtime archival concern, gained momentum as a topic of debate in the first decade of this century. As tools for digitization gradually became available to (institutional) archives, practices of online video-sharing quickly shifted user expectations. Initially, practitioners reacted by highlighting not only the opportunities, but also the threats digital access posed. More recently, archival organizations have come to view such access as a core responsibility as well as a financial necessity – even as it continues to present legal, technological and ethical issues. In addition, they are more acutely aware that ensuring access is a complex task, because it not only involves making resources available, but also mediating them, so that they can acquire relevance for contemporary users. In recent years, this has resulted in a wide range of distribution, curation, and presentation practices, both on- and off-line.

Over time, those practices have called into question the choices that are made as items and collections get selected and framed. Concern has been expressed over who gets to make decisions, whose interests those decisions serve, and which biases they entail (e.g. who gets represented or excluded, and from whose perspective). Such questions in turn fueled broader debates about the
politics of archiving, centering among others on questions about agency (the role of archives as gatekeepers and the place of various archival ‘stakeholders’) and institutional legitimacy. Consequently, calls have been made for more participatory forms of archiving and the involvement of communities (especially underrepresented ones) in practices of collecting, preserving and making accessible or presenting moving images and sound. In addition, proposals have been made for ‘against the grain’, counter- and an-archival projects, among others with activist intent. Aside from challenging dominant archival paradigms, those offer opportunities for a more inclusive debate about access to audiovisual ‘heritage’, counterbalancing dominant, Western perspectives.

Tying in with such developments, this special issue of The Moving Image focuses on how audio-visual collections – established or emerging, institutional or more informal – are being activated, or re-activated: that is, made to engage new, contemporary audiences. The editors above all invite contributions that consider how, in the process of re-/activation, collections are turned into trulycommunal resources, and mobilized for the common good – whether by people who directly contribute to the activities of archival organisations or initiatives, or who operate from their peripheries. Of special interest here are projects that involve the reinterpretation, or re-appropriation, of archival moving images and sound in order to stimulate interest in, or engagement with, particular social and political causes.

As always, the journal will feature a combination of longer, analytical and/or critical pieces (peer-reviewed) and a number of forum essays that engage with relevant cases in a more informal manner. Also reviews of recent publications and events on related topics are welcome.

Possible contribution topics include (but are not limited to): ● (archival) moving images as a resource for citizen engagement and advocacy

  • archives, museums and distribution/presentation platforms (e.g. festivals, video-sharing
    websites, etc.) as facilitators of engagement
  • community involvement in archival access and presentation, and ways of fostering it
  • activist approaches to the curation and presentation of archival moving images and sound
  • archival ‘activation’ in non-institutional and informal archives, and what formal archives can
    learn from them
  • re-readings and reinterpretations of archival objects or collections, and their (contemporary)
    political or civic potential
  • agency and resistance in or through (re)use of archival audio-visual collections
  • archival access and presentation as means for (re)building collections and/or re-historicising the past
  • the ethical (e.g. privacy) and legal (e.g. rights management) implications of reusing audio-visual records for socio-political purpose

Please send one-paragraph proposals for feature articles (double blind peer reviewed, between 4000
and 6000 words) and shorter, more informal forum pieces to e.l.masson@uva.nl and g.fossati@uva.nl
by 31 December 2019. Complete drafts will be due in mid-April 2020. The issue is to appear in the
Spring of 2021.

Visit here for more information about the journal. For access to previous special issues, check out the publisher’s archive.

CFP: “The Presence and Persistence of Stories,” National Council on Public History

“The Presence and Persistence of Stories”

Stories are the cornerstones of our relationship to each other and to the land. With each telling and re-telling, we reinforce relationships, we bridge past and present, and we lay foundations for the future. A single place might have many histories, it might have vibrant pasts distinct from our own, but through our stories, our memories, and our experiences, we become inextricably connected to that place. This conference celebrates stories and histories, and explicitly grounds them in the land of their telling.

At the dawn of NCPH’s fifth decade, this conference invites sessions that illuminate the ways stories of the past bring meaning to the present and that consider how narratives form and re-form through the ongoing nature of their interpretation. While the theme is particularly focused on Indigenous storytelling, the telling of under-told stories, and what it means to speak stories to future generations, we also hope to engage histories that reveal the dynamism and complexities of all communities, known and less-known.

View the full Call for Proposals, and see below for submission details.

Call for Research Participation: A Study into Environmental Sustainability and Archival Practice

A Study into Environmental Sustainability and Archival Practice

I am Georgina Robinson, an Archives and Records Management MA student at University College London currently undertaking dissertation research to explore environmental sustainability within archival practice. My aim is to quantify levels of awareness and action in the UK. This investigation will form the basis of my dissertation and the results may be published as an article to encourage further discussion on this topic.

For the purpose of this study:

  • Those involved in archival practice are taken to be anyone (aged 18 or over) whose work involves the care and curation of archives, records or data, e.g. archivists, records managers, conservators or digital curators.
  • The practice of environmental sustainability is to ensure that the needs of today’s population are met without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This is done through responsible interaction with the environment to avoid depletion or degradation of natural resources.

If you are interested, please follow or share this link to the online questionnaire: https://opinio.ucl.ac.uk/s?s=67873

There are 17 questions it total, which should take about 10 minutes to complete. The closing date for responses is the 22nd June 2020.

If you have any questions please contact me on georgina.robinson.18[at]ucl.ac.uk

Background to this study

In archival discourse, the term ‘sustainability’ has mostly been used in relation to the sustainability of running an archive service. This may seem understandable in a sector where many are subject to financial and practical limitations in their work. This study aims to explore whether costs are ever a contributing or motivating factor in the implementation of environmental sustainability. An example would be the assertion that decreasing energy consumption in an archive will save money and reduce fossil fuel consumption.

Although environmental sustainability has been less frequently explored in archival theory, significant literature exists on how to be a ‘Green’ Archivist[1] or how to build a ‘Green’ Archive.[2]

This project, however, seeks to explore current awareness of our environmental impact and what cultural heritage professionals in the UK are doing about it. Interest in this study has already shown that there is significant concern about the issue of Climate Change and desire to act upon it from within the Archive sector. In part this may have been accelerated by the recent waves of environmental awareness seen over the world with climate strikes and protests.

This is true in US as well as in the UK and Europe. Over the last couple of years, we have seen an increasing level of discussion on this issue from archive professionals in the US. Detailed papers, such as Harvard Library’s Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation[3] and Ben Goldman’s It’s Not Easy Being Green(e): Digital Preservation in the Age of Climate Change[4] detail the impact of Digital Preservation and what Archivists can do to alter theory and practices to better reduce their collection’s toll on the environment.

The common theme of these studies is whether we, as archivists, records managers or conservators, have a duty to mitigate the impact of our work on the environment? Do we have any power in the struggle for Climate Justice? Why should we care?

I would like to hear about your experiences, thoughts and opinions on this issue. I am looking for UK based archivists, record managers and conservation professionals who are willing to participate in this study. Any support with this will be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Georgina Robinson

Department of Information Studies
University College London

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/georgina-robinson-90160bb1

Twitter: @georginarobin

[1] Heidi N. Abbey, The Green Archivist: a primer for adopting affordable, environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible archival management practices,
Archival Issues, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 91-115, 2012

[2] IFLA PAC, Library & Archives Facing the Challenges of Sustainable Development, International Preservation News, No 44, 2008.

[3] Keith L. Pendergrass, Walker Sampson, Tim Walsh, and Laura Alagna, “Toward Environmentally Sustainable Digital Preservation”, The American Archivist 82 (1): 165–206, 2019.

[4] Benjamin Goldman, “It’s Not Easy Being Green(e): Digital Preservation in the Age of Climate Change,” in Archival Values: Essays in Honor of Mark Greene, Society of American Archivists, 2019.

Image from page 141 of “The Canadian field-naturalist” (1919). Cortesy of Internet Archive Book Images.

CFP: The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum

The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum addresses the key question: How can the institution of the museum become more inclusive? The journal brings together academics, curators, museum and public administrators, cultural policy makers, and research students to engage in discussions about the historic character and future shape of the museum.

The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum is peer reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published.

Read submission guidelines.

Information & Culture

Our access policies are expanding! Information & Culture is proud to announce that authors in the journal may now archive pre-print and post-print versions of their articles. Open access policies make scholarly research more visible and accessible for both authors and researchers.

Learn more at Sherpa Romeo which enables researchers and librarians to see publishers’ conditions for open access archiving on a journal-by-journal basis. Visit https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/22227 or https://infoculturejournal.org/Selfarchiving for details.

CFP: Collections and COVID-19

Articles are sought for a focus issue of the journal Collections which will consider collections and COVID-19. How have museums, archives, and libraries been impacted by COVID-19? What impact has COVID-19 had on collections, particularly?

In particular this call seeks contributions which address any of the following: institutional efforts at rapid response collecting; the intrinsic value of building collections during this historic time; the role and messaging of collections during the pandemic; the shift to online collection display as a way of providing opportunities for online engagement while institutions are not permitting visitors; the role of “essential staff” and their duties as related to collections; the financial impact of COVID-19 on collections; and other topics within the scope of “Collections and COVID-19”

For this issue, we are seeking articles, essays, and case studies of 2,000-3,000 words (8-12 pages double-spaced, plus notes and references). Authors should express their interest by submitting a 150-word abstract, anticipated article length, number of images, and any relevant information (such as context, short bio, pertinent URLs) to the guest editor carrie.meyer@unmc.edu and the journal editor jdgsh@rit.edu by Tuesday, June 30, 2020.

Notification of acceptance will be made by July 15, 2020, with the deadline for submission of final papers set for August 30, 2020 through the SAGE online submission portal. Publication is anticipated for volume 17 with an issue date of 2021.

For additional information or to receive samples of the journal, please contact the journal editor, Juilee Decker, jdgsh@rit.edu.

 

Call for Survey Participation: Archives and Refugees

Dear All, I am currently undertaking a dissertation research about: “Archives and Refugees: An investigation on mainstream and community archives and other projects and their relationship with refugee records”.I compiled a questionnaire and would be happy, if everybody who is working with refugee records or with projects that record the heritage of refugees could take part in my survey. The questionnaire can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7vv_ecp8jo8f9D1BpdsxVCVr8XhSdXm-fhf9aO0W_95OXCg/viewform?usp=sf_linkI would love to gather as many different responses as possible! Any support with this is massively appreciated.Thank you in advance and stay safe!

Elisa Schlarp

CFP: For the Health of the New Nation

CALL FOR PAPERS

FHNN Virtual Conference

June 2020 

Title:  Silences in the LAMS: Digital Surrogacy in the Time of Pandemic

Date:  October 12, 2020 (VIRTUAL)

Intro: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, in conjunction with the CLIR-funded project For the Health of the New Nation (FHNN) through a partnership with the Philadelphia Area Consortium for Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), invites proposals for a one-day, online conference on the use of digital primary sources. 

In a time when the use of hard-copy primary sources has been all but eliminated, how are teachers, scholars, and other researchers using digital surrogates in their work? How has this digital format impacted the research process? What are the strengths and weaknesses of working solely with digital collections? How do (or don’t) digital surrogates manifest silences within archives?  This conference will explore these questions and more to examine the challenges and rewards of conducting or teaching history in a near virtual environment.

Session Formats

Presenting online creates new challenges, but it also offers new possibilities. While we suggest your proposal match one of the session formats below, we encourage presenters to use any digital presentation style that would engage and entice viewers.

Traditional Paper Presentation – 30-minute session of one fully prepared paper, with time for comments and discussion 

Panel Discussion – 60-minute session consisting of three to five panelists discussing perspectives on a selected topic 

Lightning Talks – 30-minute session of four to five 5-minute talks on a given topic 

Proposal Evaluation:  The Program Committee invites proposals on the following topics, as they relate to digital archival collections:

  • Archival silences
  • Exclusions in the history of medical education
  • Metadata and access
  • Teaching with primary sources
  • Loss of physicality
  • Effective digital tools to mine content

    Presenters are encouraged, though not required, to use digitized materials from the CLIR Hidden Collections grant project, For the Health of the New Nation…, in their proposals.

    Submitting a Proposal: Initial proposals require an abstract of up to 250 words as well as a preliminary title. If the abstract is accepted, full papers will be due this fall (see below for more details). 

    Submission form: forms.gle/i7pPgVLXMYLgtPHu7 

    Deadline for abstract submission:  July 1, 2020

    Date of acceptance notification:  July 15, 2020

    RBM publication:  If your abstract is accepted, you may be asked to submit your full presentation for potential publication in RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage, Spring 2021 issue.  Final selection for publication will be dependent on the number of submissions and input from the RBM editorial board.

    Deadline for paper/presentation submission:  September 1, 2020

    RBM accepted papers due:  September 15, 2020

    Word limit for papers:  Papers must conform to the publication guidelines of RBM.  We suggest no more than 3500 words. 

    Review Committee members:

    Beth Lander, College Librarian/The Robert Austrian Chair, College of Physicians of Philadelphia
    Kelsey Duinkerken, Special Collections & Digital Services Librarian, Thomas Jefferson University
    Kelly O’Donnell, Ph.D., NEH Postdoctoral Fellow, Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

    Keynote Speaker:  Melissa Grafe, Ph.D.  John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, Head of the Medical Historical Library

    Contact names

    Beth Lander, College of Physicians of Philadelphia (blander@collegeofphysicians.org)
    Kelsey Duinkerken, Thomas Jefferson University (Kelsey.Duinkerken@jefferson.edu)

    For the Health of the New Nation is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.