Research Journal Prompts

Prompt #9 for Apr. 18 Research Journal (two parts)
For our final journal entry, I'll ask you to think specifically about digitization as a factor in history-making. Please locate and compare the following timelines of Suffrage history:

Discuss some of the explicit and implicit differences between the timelines and how they represent the Suffrage Movement. Note any interesting patterns or dissonances between them.

Now, examine the history of women’s education as it is reflected in digital exhibits. Locate and compare the following exhibits of women’s education, or of women in education (and feel free to read their timelines if the exhibits also feature them):

Again, discuss some of the explicit and implicit differences between the projects and how they represent “education” as an historical trajectory, a social movement, or a feminist project (or as something else). Note any interesting patterns or dissonances between them. What narrative does each one construct? What are some of the reasons for (or contexts for) that construction?

Finally, what concepts from our readings or class discussions this semester can help you discuss what you observe in the digitization of these timelines or exhibits, and what difference do you think digitization makes? What other questions does this activity raise for you?

Prompt #8 for Apr. 18 Research Journal
In the last two weeks of our last unit we came very close to articulating an archival methodology from our discussions about "what it means (or could mean) to take social, feminist, and critical consciousness into the archive," and we put special emphasis on "whiteness" as a kind of hegemony or guiding principle (cf. Eubanks and Ramirez). For this journal entry, examine one of the following projects using Eubanks and/or Ramirez as your critical lens. First, with what conceptions of "whiteness" do their arguments implicitly or explicitly contend (i.e., what does it mean in Eubanks' or Ramirez's arguments, and how do they define or understand it)? Second, how could that notion of "whiteness" influence one of the following projects?

Allow yourself time to browse/understand the particular project you select, so that you can write specifically about it in your journal entry.

Prompt #7 for Apr. 18 Research Journal [longish -- this one will take time]
In the third unit of our course we considered the workings of cultural hegemony in feminist criticism -- namely that hegemony often occurs through "naturalizing" sexual identities and through "mystifying" the cultural formation of the feminine. It would make sense, then, that feminist critics who want to resist this hegemonizing would do so in one of two ways: (1) by confounding or disrupting those "naturalizing" tendencies; or (2) by de-mystifying the cultural and social processes surrounding the "feminine." At the same time, there may be other ways to resist, given that there seems to be no such thing as a single, progressive feminist narrative. The nature and kind of resistance to cultural hegemony may be in flux due to a number of factors. How do you think one could use the archives to uncover certain hegemonies of power, or to develop an awareness of how to alter one's own hegemonic way of thinking? First, consider what Steedman, Kirsch, or Davy have to say, drawing on at least two of these authors and their arguments. Then, pose a theory of your own. Please feel free to draw on relevant atrocities, repositories, case studies, or links from any of our class discussions as examples, if they will help to make your case.

Prompt #6 for Mar. 2 Research Journal
Locate and examine one (1) collection from any two (2) of the following online repositories, paying attention to scope, aim, arrangement, navigation, and anything else noteworthy:

      Some of these repositories contain more than just collections, so be sure to take some time to locate an actual collection (or "document archive," depending on what it is called). Then, discuss the challenges of trying to represent women or gendered subjects in these collections. Does the representation work, or not work, from your vantage point, and why or why not? Who seems to be the audience for the collections you chose to examine, and who has access (or not)? What principles seem to inform the arrangement, description and accessibility of materials in these collections? How do you think those principles either enhance or detract from how women are represented there? In the interests of noting some intersection(s) between feminist and archival emancipation, you might draw on Heilbrun ("Writing"), McHenry ("Forgotten"), Ritter ("En/Gendering"), Kirsch ("Feminist"), Rohan ("Stitching"), or Steedman ("Rag Rug") to help you discuss any of the above.

      Prompt #5 for Mar. 2 Research Journal
      Take a look at any 2 of the following 3 projects:

      These are all different entities, ranging from a participatory platform to a formal digital archive to a dynamic exhibit. Visit them, browse them, read their “About” pages, and use them, taking note of idiosyncracies and similarities. What do you think motivates each project (historically, socially, or archivally)? How is each one organized or arranged? What are the affordances and constraints -- or the possibilities and cautions -- of each project? What challenges do you think the project creators face? What are the risks and rewards of each one? How could they avoid telling denotative fictions?

      Please also reflect on the gravity of trying to pull off a cultural memory or cultural heritage project. How hard is that, and how do some of these sites attempt to do so? Are they successful, or do you think they have missed the mark? Feel free to draw on anything we have read in the second and third units of our syllabus to help you reflect.

      Prompt #4 for Mar. 2 Research Journal
      What constitutes “an ethic of activism” in the archives? For part of your response, you might draw on our selections from Kirsch and Royster's collection, as well as Jimerson's chapter on ethics. In Archives Power, Jimerson argues that the 2005 SAA Code of Ethics (347) is admittedly constrained, and of little use to those outside the profession (350). Yet his archival imperative is something that users can eventually share, and implicitly he suggests that an archive's users might better appreciate the intellectual and activist labor of archivists. If Jimerson were to devise a new code of ethics, specifically one that supported archival activism, of what do you think it would consist? First, articulate 5-10 principles that would constitute this ethic of activism based on what you understand in his text. Then, consider how that ethic could work on the Native American Protocols (the case study he describes from page 354 onward). Finally, consider how that ethic could work on something like Jane Alexander's "Butcher Boys" exhibit.

      Prompt #3 for either Feb. 2 or Mar. 2 Research Journal
      This prompt emerges from our discussion of Nesmith and Finnegan, and because it emerges at a transitional moment in the course -- i.e., at the beginning of a new unit but at the end of your first journal -- you may feel free to take it up in this month's journal or in next's. Read and view Correal's recovery story from the January 27 edition of The New York Times. If you had never read Nesmith's chapter on "appraisal" or been asked to consider Finnegan's shack/sharecropper problem (with the tagged image at the FSA), how do you think you would interpret this story? What difference does reading those two essays make in how you view, understand, and/or value Etta Mae's narrative? The narrative of her friends and family mentioned in the article? Annie Correal's research process and ultimate story angle? What kinds of "appraisal" (Nesmith 32) do you think have had to go on in society in order for you to respond to the article the way that you do?

      Prompt #2 for Feb. 2 Research Journal
      Folks, after our first discussion in Special Collections today (Tuesday) I was struck by the various interpretive differences that can occur in something even as clearly delineated as Greg Hunter's “archive.” Explicitly, Hunter provides a history of modern-day archives and describes the various people and processes involved in creating and maintaining them; implicitly, through the vignettes that thread together his chapter, Hunter asks us to consider the various roles that an archive invites, as well as the thought processes (and interpretive differences) wrapped up in each role. For example: establishing intellectual and physical control of records; determining who produced it, when, and why; identifying content, size, history, and existing arrangement; assessing its condition; determining its value; and reflecting on its contextual significance. Indeed, Hunter's “archive” is a busy, active space, in contrast to the space in which Mattias's character lived. Reflect on those differences for a moment, and what they reveal. As different as they are, how could Hunter and Matthias help us to mark critical intersections between some of these various roles? What other implied roles do you see emerge from these two texts?

      Prompt #1 for Feb. 2 Research Journal
      In your research journal, identify a “collection” held by you or your family and write a brief finding aid for it, in which you describe its origins, scope, arrangement or organization, purpose, and contents. In a couple of pages, discuss the humanities (or other) research potential for such a collection. What principles from our readings influenced how you ultimately described, arranged, and/or justified the collection? Think about knowledge potential and research potential – it may be challenging at first, but overcome the urge to make stuff up, i.e., there’s no standard set of questions that all collections invite. Devise questions that you think are not only unique to your collection but also significant for different reasons.
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