Turning Archival: The Life of the Historical in Queer Studies

Turning Archival explores the rise of the archive as a source of historical desire and study within queer studies, highlighting its significance for LGBTQ scholarship, politics, and everyday life. It draws on accounts of queer archival encounters in institutional, grassroots, and everyday repositories of historical memory, covering topics such as the everyday life of marginalized queer immigrants, secondhand vinyl record collecting, grassroots lesbians' self-archiving practices, and the decolonial potential of absences and gaps in colonial archives. The volume illuminates the allure of the archive, reflects on what resists archival capture, and outlines the stakes of queer and trans lives in the archival turn.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 392 pages
Publication date: 08 November 2022
Publisher: Duke University Press

The contributors to Turning Archival trace the rise of "the archive" as an object of historical desire and study within queer studies and examine how it fosters historical imagination and knowledge. Highlighting the growing significance of the archival to LGBTQ scholarship, politics, and everyday life, they draw upon accounts of queer archival encounters in institutional, grassroots, and everyday repositories of historical memory. The contributors examine such topics as the everyday life of marginalized queer immigrants in New York City as an archive; secondhand vinyl record collecting and punk bootlegs; the self-archiving practices of grassroots lesbians; and the decolonial potential of absences and gaps in the colonial archives through the life of a suspected hermaphrodite in colonial Guatemala. Engaging with archives from Africa to the Americas to the Arctic, this volume illuminates the allure of the archive, reflects on that which resists archival capture, and outlines the stakes of queer and trans lives in the archival turn.

Contributors:

Anjali Arondekar
Kate Clark
Ann Cvetkovich
Carolyn Dinshaw
Kate Eichhorn
Javier FernÁndez-Galeano
Emmett Harsin Drager
Elliot James
Marget Long
Martin F. Manalansan IV
Daniel Marshall
MarÍa Elena MartÍnez
Joan Nestle
IvÁn Ramos
David Serlin
Zeb Tortorici

The contributors to Turning Archival trace the rise of "the archive" as an object of historical desire and study within queer studies and examine how it fosters historical imagination and knowledge. Highlighting the growing significance of the archival to LGBTQ scholarship, politics, and everyday life, they draw upon accounts of queer archival encounters in institutional, grassroots, and everyday repositories of historical memory. The contributors examine such topics as the everyday life of marginalized queer immigrants in New York City as an archive; secondhand vinyl record collecting and punk bootlegs; the self-archiving practices of grassroots lesbians; and the decolonial potential of absences and gaps in the colonial archives through the life of a suspected hermaphrodite in colonial Guatemala. Engaging with archives from Africa to the Americas to the Arctic, this volume illuminates the allure of the archive, reflects on that which resists archival capture, and outlines the stakes of queer and trans lives in the archival turn.

Weight: 612g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478017974