Into the Archives: History, Power, and the Written Word

Graduate / Professional

This is a seminar aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduate students interested in learning more about how historians have grappled with the institution at the heart of much historical practice: the archive. The course focuses on reading and discussing key theoretical and historical works on “the archive” and archives and how these relate to discussions of power, from cases across the globe. We also explore how historians have written about their own relationships to these institutions, as well as their experience of working in archives. Weekly short writing assignments allow students to develop their academic writing skills in conjunction with small-group review of their drafts. The final four weeks of the seminar spend time exploring Yale’s own archival collections as the focus of a final piece of research and writing, drafts of which are workshopped in class. Th 1:30pm-3:25pm