- Department: English and Related Literature
- Module co-ordinator: Prof. Jon Mee
- Credit value: 10 credits
- Credit level: I
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
- See module specification for other years: 2021-22
The aim of this module is to introduce you to the mutual relevance of literary and archival work, and more broadly to expose you to the possibilities and implications – aesthetic, literary-historical and practical – of the archive as an institution, a collection, a moral choice and a prompt to creativity. The module will be run in partnership with, and at the premises of, local organizations, such as the Borthwick, the National Railway Museum, and York Explore. You will meet archivists to hear about and discuss the ethics and pragmatics of particular collections, and will approach a range of texts, images, media and sites in new ways.
You will read texts about archives (e.g. The Aspern Papers, Archive Fever, texts about archival methodologies and research (e.g. Marion Thain’s recent ‘Perspective’ on digitization of diaries, Helena Michie and Robyn Warhol’s Love in the Archives, Kate Eichhorn The Archival Turn in Feminism, as well as texts held by archives (letters, albums, travel guides). This module will give you a glimpse of new sectors of work (editing, information technologies, heritage, curation). You will be encouraged to develop the research skills in archival research, research design and public engagement which will assist you in preparing for your third-year dissertation work.
The teaching will take place as 4 talks plus workshops on site within a single block, and will be taught as far as possible ‘on site’, so you must be prepared to travel off campus. After an initial introductory lecture based on or around the ‘primary’ texts by the convenor, outlining the nature and potential of the module, the lectures will take the form of talks by, or interviews conducted by the convenor with, archivists and/or curators, and the workshops will focus on selections of the holdings of each institution.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Summer Term 2022-23 |
The aim of this module is to inform you about how archives come about, what challenges they pose, what ethical questions they raise, and how they might feed into literary scholarship.
On successful completion of the module, you should be able to:
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Oral presentation/seminar/exam Team Presentation |
N/A | 100 |
None
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework Reassessment: 1500 word Essay |
N/A | 100 |
You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your tutor or your supervisor, during their Open Office Hours