African-American Literature: Sites of Memory: Black Archives in Theory and Practice

Silences, blind spots, absences: institutional archives are often characterized by what they stifle, obscure, or lack. So what kind of work is done by Black archives, which do not take their institutional presence for granted and often take shape in extra-institutional sites? In this survey of Black archival thought, we identify the practices that writers, artists, and scholars have used to create their own sites of memory and meaning-making. Through discussion and Special Collections workshops, we investigate how Black archives urge a rethinking of our ethical, epistemological, and affective relations to historical and documentary evidence.