Glut


Content awareness: This session engages methodologically and theoretically with archival materials that may involve sexual violence, reproductive politics, racialised power, gendered harm, and coercion, particularly in contexts where such materials appear in uneven, repetitive, or overwhelming abundance (“archival glut”). While the focus of the session is analytical and methodological rather than descriptive, some themes may nevertheless be challenging. For those who may find it helpful, we also recommend the excellent resources produced by the Challenging Research group, which offer guidance on working with emotionally demanding archives and topics: https://challengingresearch.org/resources/

Historian of Victorian childhood Catherine Sloan investigates what she does with boredom: how as the reader of a mass of Victorian magazines she has sat with the problem of repetitive sources, and developed new techniques of interpretation.

Anthea Butler is a historian of twentieth-century race, power and religion. She asks what we can learn from when there is a glut of archival material about women’s activities around reproduction, but historians focus unduly on white women and the right to the exclusion of work on the left. How do we weigh where to place our attention?

Respondents:

Meryem Kalayci (Oxford)
Tehila Sasson (Oxford)
Emily Cousens (Northeastern University, London)