Introduction
"Media and the Archive: Motions and Transformations" is a Summer 2016 undergraduate course taught as part of the USC-Mellon Digital Humanities Program.
For a list of participants, please see our Authors page.
The 21st century has seen a burgeoning of various kinds of archives—personal, community, institutional, and hybrid—facilitated by the affordances of digital technologies. This course examines the theoretical and practical facets of the archive, with a focus on how technology impacts our relationship to the past, present, and future. We will begin with some definitions and foundational concepts, and think about how understandings of the archive have evolved. More than a closed system, the archive has lodged within it both instability and the potential for disruption; the archive, therefore, should be understood as a process, or what Foucault describes in The Archaeology of Knowledge as "the general system of the formation and transformation of statements."
We will emphasize the social and cultural aspects of archival productions, as well as the digital representation of diverse voices whose stories exist on the margins of archival formations. Each session, we will explore a variety of multimedia archives, and each analysis of a specific archive will be accompanied by theoretical readings. At the end of the course, we will take a tour of the ONE Archives at USC.
As a mini archive, this Scalar book is a repository for class materials, as well as a dynamic, media-rich, collaborative space in which students can generate and curate content related to the themes of the course. Each page contains the readings and key questions for a specific unit, functioning as a springboard prior to the class meeting(s) on the unit. It also serves as a platform for the students' reflections and extensions of the themes discussed in the unit.
This book is meant to be a critical exploration of what the archive means, and what a digital archive with content generated collaboratively by its participants might look and feel like. We invite you to read along and explore our journey through "Media and the Archive: Motions and Transformations," and welcome comments, feedback, and collaborations on topics related to the question of the archive.
For a list of participants, please see our Authors page.
Course Description
The archive comes from the Greek word arkheion, a repository for official documents, and a place where the archons, the rulers, reside. Archives, in other words, are places of power and authority where specifically selected materials are kept; they are places enclosed by walls and security, ensuring that only those with permission can enter. In Archive Fever, Derrida asks, "But where does the outside commence? This question is the question of the archive. There are undoubtedly no others." Where the outside begins is a question that persists and must continue to be asked again and again, particularly whenever one thinks about, accesses, and uses and archive. In more practical terms, what is at stake is the issue of agency: who and what is the archive for? What gets left out? What is the relationship between institutional and community knowledge?The 21st century has seen a burgeoning of various kinds of archives—personal, community, institutional, and hybrid—facilitated by the affordances of digital technologies. This course examines the theoretical and practical facets of the archive, with a focus on how technology impacts our relationship to the past, present, and future. We will begin with some definitions and foundational concepts, and think about how understandings of the archive have evolved. More than a closed system, the archive has lodged within it both instability and the potential for disruption; the archive, therefore, should be understood as a process, or what Foucault describes in The Archaeology of Knowledge as "the general system of the formation and transformation of statements."
We will emphasize the social and cultural aspects of archival productions, as well as the digital representation of diverse voices whose stories exist on the margins of archival formations. Each session, we will explore a variety of multimedia archives, and each analysis of a specific archive will be accompanied by theoretical readings. At the end of the course, we will take a tour of the ONE Archives at USC.
About This Book
This Scalar book is a mini archive of the class, written together by the instructor and all participants of the course.As a mini archive, this Scalar book is a repository for class materials, as well as a dynamic, media-rich, collaborative space in which students can generate and curate content related to the themes of the course. Each page contains the readings and key questions for a specific unit, functioning as a springboard prior to the class meeting(s) on the unit. It also serves as a platform for the students' reflections and extensions of the themes discussed in the unit.
This book is meant to be a critical exploration of what the archive means, and what a digital archive with content generated collaboratively by its participants might look and feel like. We invite you to read along and explore our journey through "Media and the Archive: Motions and Transformations," and welcome comments, feedback, and collaborations on topics related to the question of the archive.
