Unsettling Archival Research

Gesa E. Kirsch is professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Soka University of America. Her books include Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies; Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process; and Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research.Romeo GarcÍa is assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of Utah and coeditor of Rhetorics Elsewhere and Otherwise.Caitlin Burns Allen is a doctoral candidate in rhetoric and composition at the University of Louisville. Her work has appeared in Ethics and Representation in Feminist Rhetorical Inquiry and Peitho.Walker P. Smith holds a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Louisville.Contributions byJennifer Almjeld, Sally F. Benson, Jean Bessette, MarÍa P. Carvajal Regidor, LynÉe Lewis Gaillet, Tarez Samra Graban, Wendy Hayden, Deborah Hollis, Jackie M. James, Amy J. Lueck, Kathryn Manis, Nadia Nasr, Kalyn Prince, Liz Rohan, Jessica A. Rose, Rebecca Schneider, Pamela Takayoshi, and Patty Wilde.

“This book brings together an exceptionally powerful collection of essays dedicated to revealing and amending the epistemic erasures of imperial archives. Chapters present alternatives to concepts often taken for granted in archival research, they reckon with archival methodologies, and they illustrate pluriversal archival efforts and pedagogies. Important and timely, Unsettling Archival Research promises to have lasting impact on rhetoric and writing studies.”—Ellen Cushman, author of The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance“My approach to archival work is significantly changed after this invigorating read. This collection succeeds in unsettling archives and researchers in the best ways: sharing critiques and tough questions of the field while also providing a toolkit for navigating the disruption in archives and with archivists and students. Blending a range of theories with rich and varied archival examples and classroom practices, both emerging and experienced scholars upend disciplinary knowledge and Western assumptions of neutrality, memory, and history.”—Charlotte Hogg, coeditor of Persuasive Acts: Women’s Rhetorics in the Twenty-First Century“This carefully constructed collection offers a welcome next step in complicating our understanding of what constitutes both archive and archival research through diverse case studies and theoretical contributions drawing on antiracist, decolonial, feminist, indigenous, and queer theories and methods. Unsettling Archival Research will assist both emerging and experienced researchers to develop more inclusive and self-reflective practices.”—David Gold, author of Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947“Comprised of fifteen seminal contributions of original research and experiential insight/experience, Unsettling Archival Research: Engaging Critical, Communal, and Digital Archives is especially recommended as a core addition for personal, professional, community, and academic library collections and studies lists for Library/Information Science, Library Management, and General Library Information Science collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.”— James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Midwest Book Review's Library Bookwatch

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction—Romeo GarcÍa, Gesa E. Kirsch, Walker P. Smith, and Caitlin Burns AllenPart One. Unsettling Key Concepts1. Unsettling the “Archive Story”—Jean Bessette2. Rescuing the Archive from What?—Wendy Hayden 3. Narratives of Triumph: A Case Study of the Polio Archive—Jackie M. James4. Nostalgia in the Archives: Using Nostalgia as a Tool for Negotiating Ideological Tensions—Kalyn Prince5. A Matter of Order: The Power of Provenance in the Mercury Collection of Marion Lamm—Kathryn Manis and Patty WildePart Two. Unsettling Research, Theory, and Methodology6. Hidden in Plain Sight: Rescuing the Archives from Disciplinarity—LynÉe Lewis Gaillet and Jessica A. Rose7. (En)Countering Archival Silences: Critical Lenses, Relationships, and Informal Archives—MarÍa P. Carvajal Regidor8. Let Them Speak: Rhetorically Reimagining Prison Voices in the Archives of the Collective—Sally F. Benson9. Bearing Witness to Transient Histories—Pamela Takayoshi10. The Rhetorical (Im)possibilities of Recovering George Barr: Toward a Decolonial Queer Archival Methodology—Walker P. SmithPart Three. Unsettling Praxis and Pedagogy: Towards Pluriversality11. Archival Imaginings of the Working-Class College Woman: The 1912-1913 Scrapbook of Josephine Gomon, University of Michigan College Student—Liz Rohan12. Decolonizing the Transnational Collection: A Heuristic for Teaching Digital Archival Curation and Participation—Tarez Samra Graban13. Archiving as Learning: Digital Archiving As Heuristic for Transformative Undergraduate Education—Jennifer Almjeld14. Settling Emerging Scholars in Unsettling Territory: A Case Study—Rebecca Schneider and Deborah Hollis15. Unsettling Archival Pedagogy—Amy J. Lueck and Nadia NasrContributors