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The Document as Epistemic Object: Notes on Archival Knowledge Cultures

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Published/Copyright: September 23, 2020
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From the journal Anglia Volume 138 Issue 3

Abstract

This article strategically resituates scholarly engagement with archival documents within the media ecology and the epistemic culture that sustains literary and cultural studies, noting affinities between historical and contemporary configurations as well as between theoretical and medial-material dimensions of archives. Based on current debates on the growing relevance of archival documents in American Studies and adjacent fields, it stakes out a framework that leans on recent work in a small branch of contemporary literary theory focused on historical epistemology, especially with regard to the notion of ‘epistemic objects’. Engaging these theoretical concerns, the article discusses concrete archival collections and documents, including letters by the novelist Willa Cather and items from a capacious archive documenting the emergence and evolution of Andrew Carnegie’s public library philanthropy. I outline several ways in which the shape and the aesthetics of such archives embody the information economies and epistemic situations of the past – in this case, the formative period around 1900. Finally, the article addresses the digital document overload that confronts the contemporary researcher and comments on the emerging archival knowledge culture of today’s humanities.

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Published Online: 2020-09-23
Published in Print: 2020-09-15

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. What’s in an Archive? Cursory Observations and Serendipitous Reflections
  4. Archive Fever and British Romanticism: Blake, Byron, and Keats
  5. Between Aura and Access: Artefactuality, Institutionality, and the Allure of the Archival
  6. The Document as Epistemic Object: Notes on Archival Knowledge Cultures
  7. Of Gaps and Gossip: Intimacy in the Archive
  8. Words, Wares, Names: Dave the Potter as American Archive
  9. From Parchment to Podcast: The Collaborative Process of Building and Unlocking an Archive
  10. “The People Shall Continue”: Native American Museums as Archives of Futurity
  11. Speculative Bibliography
  12. Reviews
  13. Thijs Porck. 2019. Old Age in Early Medieval England: A Cultural History. Anglo-Saxon Studies 33. Woodbridge: Boydell, x + 278 pp., £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
  14. Francis Leneghan. 2020. The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon Studies 39. Cambridge: Brewer, xxi + 300 pp., 1 illustr., £ 60.00.
  15. Irina Dumitrescu and Eric Weiskott (eds.). 2019. The Shapes of Early English Poetry: Style, Form, History. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 51. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, xix + 281 pp., $ 109.99.
  16. Mary Clayton and Juliet Mullins (eds. and trans.). 2019. Ælfric: Old English Lives of Saints. Volumes I-III. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 58–60. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. I: xxxii + 384 pp.; vol. II: vi + 426 pp.; vol. III: vi + 402 pp., each volume $ 35.00/£ 28.95/€ 31.00.
  17. Christian Kloeckner, Simone Knewitz and Sabine Sielke (eds.). 2016. Knowledge Landscapes North America. Heidelberg: Winter, 305 pp., € 58.00.
  18. T. R. Johnson (ed.). 2019. New Orleans: A Literary History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 379 pp., £ 35.00.
  19. Christian B. Long. 2017. The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema 1960–2000. Bristol/Chicago, IL: Intellect, 300 pp., £ 70.00.
https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2020-0036

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. What’s in an Archive? Cursory Observations and Serendipitous Reflections
  4. Archive Fever and British Romanticism: Blake, Byron, and Keats
  5. Between Aura and Access: Artefactuality, Institutionality, and the Allure of the Archival
  6. The Document as Epistemic Object: Notes on Archival Knowledge Cultures
  7. Of Gaps and Gossip: Intimacy in the Archive
  8. Words, Wares, Names: Dave the Potter as American Archive
  9. From Parchment to Podcast: The Collaborative Process of Building and Unlocking an Archive
  10. “The People Shall Continue”: Native American Museums as Archives of Futurity
  11. Speculative Bibliography
  12. Reviews
  13. Thijs Porck. 2019. Old Age in Early Medieval England: A Cultural History. Anglo-Saxon Studies 33. Woodbridge: Boydell, x + 278 pp., £ 60.00/$ 99.00.
  14. Francis Leneghan. 2020. The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon Studies 39. Cambridge: Brewer, xxi + 300 pp., 1 illustr., £ 60.00.
  15. Irina Dumitrescu and Eric Weiskott (eds.). 2019. The Shapes of Early English Poetry: Style, Form, History. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 51. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, xix + 281 pp., $ 109.99.
  16. Mary Clayton and Juliet Mullins (eds. and trans.). 2019. Ælfric: Old English Lives of Saints. Volumes I-III. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 58–60. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. I: xxxii + 384 pp.; vol. II: vi + 426 pp.; vol. III: vi + 402 pp., each volume $ 35.00/£ 28.95/€ 31.00.
  17. Christian Kloeckner, Simone Knewitz and Sabine Sielke (eds.). 2016. Knowledge Landscapes North America. Heidelberg: Winter, 305 pp., € 58.00.
  18. T. R. Johnson (ed.). 2019. New Orleans: A Literary History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 379 pp., £ 35.00.
  19. Christian B. Long. 2017. The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema 1960–2000. Bristol/Chicago, IL: Intellect, 300 pp., £ 70.00.
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