EGL 302 - Jr. Seminar: Literary Theory: The Archive (Winter)

Course Units: 1.0

What is an archive? It is a repository, a space that records, holding ‘stuff’ from the past: documents, letters, photographs, diaries, films, to name just a few of limitless archival possibilities. Some archives are housed in actual, physical space, others are digital, living in a technological realm. Literary Theory: The Archive (EGL 302) will explore theoretical and literary representations of the archive, so as to consider conceptual ideas around knowledge production and meaning-making. We will ask questions about the archive as a site of power, colonial dominance and exclusion, as well as some of the generative possibilities through which we can actualize archives for the remembering of marginalized narratives, as well as social justice activisms. Course texts will include Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, Carolyn Kay Steedman’s Dust: The Archive and Cultural History, Achille Mbembe, “The Power of the Archive and Its Limits, and Saidiya Hartman’s “Venus in Two Acts.” Literary texts will include Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive, Solmaz Shiraz’s Look, Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail, Kimberly Campanello’s MOTHERANDBABYHOME, and Anne Enright’s Attention: Writings on Life, Art and the World. Throughout the course, we will also spend time working in the actual space of Schaffer Library’s Special Collections and Archives, engaging in self-devised independent research projects. Prerequisite(s): One 100-level and two 200-level English courses. Students should have GPSs of 3.3 or above. CQ: HUL, HUM, WAC-R ISP: GSW