Archives, Museums, and Power

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Archives, libraries, and museums collect and curate material for both a specialized and a general public. They organize their holdings according to professional principles as well as their own internal dictates. Historians often present archives as a kind of "problem" -- they are not always organized in ways that make it possible to find the materials that a particular user wants, and they do not always contain materials that support all kinds of research. This is especially true for scholars who want to learn about the experiences of non-elite subjects: enslaved people, women, the poor, children, members of sexual minorities, and many others. In class we seek to accomplish three things: (1) reveal the ways that archives and museums are historically created projects, reflecting particular understandings of the world; (2) critique the ways that they privilege and silence different perspectives and contemplate the ways that these patterns might be overcome (if they can be overcome); (3) investigate specific archives, museums, libraries and other collecting places, via site visits on campus and through the growing number of digital archives online. We'll include walking tours, the University cemetery, the ND sports archive, and other places you may not have considered as archives or museums as well. We will meet with librarians, curators, and archivists to understand their perspectives. Students will create their own projects to curate, collect, and describe materials. This seminar will use the campus to think through many of these issues, by reading what historians have written in response to these challenges, and by visiting archives, libraries, and museums to see what their realities are. We will examine monuments and ask whose stories they can and should tell. We will also think about story-telling in history, especially about events and people that are overlooked or excluded from elite narratives. We'll end by choosing our own historical sites and crafting our own narratives, in a walking tour around campus.