How to Use (and Build) Archives of Difficult Pasts: Theories, Methods, Praxis

Materials Available Through Library Ereserves

Materials Available Through Library eReserves

Featherstone, Mike. “Archive,” Theory, Culture & Society 23(2-3), 2006: 591- 596

Sekula, Allen. “The Body and the Archive,” OCTOBER 39 (Winter), 1986: 3- 64.

Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz, University of Chicago Press, 1998: 1-7.

Steedman, Carolyn. “In the Archon’s House.” In Dust: The Archive and Cultural History. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002: 1-16.

Boles, Frank. “Disrespecting Original Order,” The American Archivist 45(1), Winter 1982: 26-32.

Cook, Terry. “Fashionable Nonsense or Professional Rebirth: Postmodernism and the Practice of Archives,” Archivaria 51, 2001: 14-35.

Caswell, Michelle. “The Archive is not an Archives: On Acknowledging the Intellectual Contributions of Archival Studies,” Reconstruction 16(1), 2016.

Simon, Roger I., Sharon Rosenberg, and Claudia Eppert, eds. “Introduction: Between Hope and Despair: The Pedagogical Encounter of Historical Remembrance.” In Between Hope and Despair: Pedagogy and the Remembrance of Historical Trauma. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000: 1-8.

Harris, Verne. “Genres of the trace: memory, archives and trouble.” Archives & Manuscripts 40(3), 2021: 147-157. Roca Lizarazu, M., and Vince, R. “Memory Studies Goes Planetary: An Interview with Stef Craps.” Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal 5(2), 2018: 1-15.

Stoler, Ann Laura. “Chapter Two: The Pulse of the Archive.” In Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008: 17-54.

Sabbagh-Khoury, Areej. “Settler colonialism and the archives of apprehension,” Current Sociology 72(1), 2024: 25-47. Ghaddar, JJ. “The Spectre in the Archive: Truth, Reconciliation, and Indigenous Archival Memory,” Archivaria 82 (Fall), 2016: 3-26.

Gordon, Avery. “her shape and his hand.” In Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008 edition: 3-30. (originally published in 1997)

Dean, Amber, Kara Granzow, and Angela May. “Notes Toward a Methodology of Haunting.” Memory Studies 19(2), 2026: 439-452.

Tuck, Eve, and C. Ree. “A Glossary of Haunting.” Handbook of Autoethnography, edited by Stacey Holman Jones, Tony E. Adams, and Carolyn Ellis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013: 639–658.

Tuck, Eve. “I Do Not Want to Haunt You, But I Will: Indigenous Feminist Theorizing on Reluctant Theories of Change.” Keynote Address, Indigenous Feminisms Workshop, University of Alberta, March 15-16, 2018. View online at

Tai, Jessica, Jimmy Zavala, Joyce Gabiola, Gracen Brilmyer, and Michelle Caswell, Michelle. “Summoning the Ghosts: Records as Agents in Community Archives.” Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies Vol. 6, Article 18. 2019: 1-20.

Hartman, Saidiya. “Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 12(2), 2008: 1-16. ---. “A Note on Method” and “A Minor Figure.” In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2019: xiii-xv, 13-35.

Bulley, Victoria Adukwei. “Interview with Saidiya Hartman.” The White Review, June 2020.

Sheffield, Rebecka Taves. “Introduction: Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times.” In Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 2020: 1-20.

Ware, Syrus Marcus.“All Power to All People? Black LGBTTI2QQ Activism, Remembrance, and Archiving in Toronto.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 4(2), 2017: 170-177. Watch the livestream recording of “Critical Engagements with 2SLGBTQ+ Archives” (1hr 50mins) at (and explore the website)

Marjara, Eisha, Dir. Desperately Seeking Helen. Montreal: NFB, 1998.

Marjara, Eisha, Dir. Calorie. Montreal: Compass Productions, 2025. Guest: Eisha Marjara, filmmaker Assignments:

Payne, Krystal. “Archival Harm Reduction: A Theoretical Framework for Utilizing Harm-Reduction Concepts in Archival Practice.” Archivaria 94 (Fall/Winter 2022): 154-181.

Freeman, Mini Aodla. Life Among the Qallunaat. Edited by Keavy Martin and Julie Rak. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2015: 36-41 and 187-201.

Douglas, Jennifer. “Keep Running Towards the Danger: The Transformative Potential of Archival Care.” Keynote Address, Archives Society of Alberta Biennial Conference, Edmonton, AB, May 25-27, 2023.