Composition in the Archive

Brad and I are writing an article on composition and the archives. He's an archivist, and I'm (obviously) a compositionist, so it makes for good clean fun. So, here's a lowdown on my part of the argument. Note: I have no idea what he'll say, since we haven't officially discussed particulars yet.

I'm interested in how the archives can, and should be used, in the composition classroom as an aspect of critical pedagogy. Since our students (and even increasing numbers of faculty) are becoming more and more technologically savvy, it's important that they get a sense of how these discourses/texts/etc work. Allan Sekula argues that the archive should be read "from the bottom up"; his premise lies in the fact that archives structure knowledge in particular ways, both about class/political issues, and historical discourses. This is highly redacted, of course. But suffice it to say that his ideas help us determine how to use and teach research.

Basically, the crux of my argument relates to multimodality. If students understand how to produce, read, interpret, and incorporate, archival information, they can then think about all other aspects of knowledge production, too. Note 2: I don't want to make sweeping, correlative claims about one practice leading to another. If anything, that's the teacher's job. But think of it this way: even internet fora like facebook are designed, and set up, like an "archive"(at least in SEkula's perspective). Incorporating the necessary processes, for lack of a better term, that go into archiving, and the ways that archives -- regardless of form or media -- necessarily hide how they structure knowledge(another of Sekula's key tenets, perhaps the most important), into our curricula would be beneficial on many counts. If nothing else, it would allow students more freedom to explore possibilities, and provide spaces for making their work relevant to their own ideas/experiences/goals for education. That's my main goal as a teacher; I'm going to have T-shirts made.

So, yeah. Any questions, let me know. I'm obsessed with the archive as a construct and theoretical staple of visual studies.

The next installment of my musings on the archive will most likely be about Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine, which I am arguing needs to be read as archive (an archive that responds to, and is influenced by, Oulipan writing strategies). After that, it's definitely gonna be Sgt. Pepper as archive.

Hmmm...maybe this should be my dissertation?