In the interest of two reminders:
- The Women Writers Project offers free access for the month of March, so I have invited you to use that as one of your repositories for Problem-Solving Exercise #3;
- our next reading assignment (for Thursday 3/23) is Ramirez ("Being Assumed Not to Be") and Eubanks ("Mississippi on My Mind"). And yes, I'll ask you one more time to bring back Steedman chapter 6. Next time, I will open our discussion with some passages from her chapter to create a reflective backdrop for the other two essays.
- For the various organizational schemes we imagine, how might we help or harm the collection? Who will become more/less visible? What comes under erasure?
- If we can imply relationships among people reflected in certain boxes, what do we risk by dismantling those boxes? Which ones are we most/least comfortable disrupting?
- If we can imply relationships among generations, or sides of the family reflected in certain boxes, whom would it benefit to keep them intact?
- How could researchers best use this collection? What should they be able to access first or primarily, and what kind of organization would allow them to do that?
- In "Cultural Memory and the Lesbian Archive," Davy writes that sometimes "feeling" is all we have on which to base our perceptions of collective memory (130). In the context of processing Nellie's papers, do you think this is harmful or productive?
- Finally, could we imagine ways to organize this collection that might resist one or more hegemonic notions of "archive"? Could we imagine an organization that might resonate with how Kirsch encourages us to develop a feminist research ethic?
Think of all you have accomplished in several quick weeks; I truly look forward to the coming ones. Have a lovely break,
-Dr. Graban
