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Imagined Archives, Tuesdays, Jan 20 - Feb 24, 5-7pm PST
Why make imaginary archives?
cost: $300, $400, or $500 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available
The archive is inaccessible. Its walls tower. It’s razed to the ground by invading forces, torched to erase memory. The archive whispers in the breeze. It’s deleted, censored, glitched and erased. It releases its memos and treasures bit by bit, slowly, to those who know how to ask. Given the wide range of perils facing the archive, it’s a wonder anything is saved for future generations. Some writers have experimented with the possibilities of the archive by creating their own fictional archives. Some create entirely imagined interviews with future revolutionaries. Some have their characters uncover the archeological remains of our present-day society, or the bones of an unusual species that never existed. Still others imagine stories connected to real objects and letters and people, taking liberties with the past. What this shows us is that archives live ahead of as well as behind us. They are living collections, and can offer us a speculative exercise that can open up narrative and political possibilities for those without archives of their own. Is an imagined archive playground, pastiche, or possibility? What happens when all three collide? And should we try making our own imagined archives? (We will.)
Readings will pull from the following books, as well as one-off short stories and essays provided in PDF form:
Odete, The Elder Femme and Other Stone Writings
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive
M.E. O’Brien & Eman Abdelhadi, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072
Untold Microcosms: Latin American Writers in the British Museum
Roberto Bolaño, Nazi Literature of the Americas
All students are invited to participate in a biweekly cowrite & chat session on alternating Thursdays from 5-7pm PST, for the following calendar year, beginning from the date of their first class.
Imagined Archives, Tuesdays, Jan 20 - Feb 24, 5-7pm PST
Why make imaginary archives?
cost: $300, $400, or $500 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available
The archive is inaccessible. Its walls tower. It’s razed to the ground by invading forces, torched to erase memory. The archive whispers in the breeze. It’s deleted, censored, glitched and erased. It releases its memos and treasures bit by bit, slowly, to those who know how to ask. Given the wide range of perils facing the archive, it’s a wonder anything is saved for future generations. Some writers have experimented with the possibilities of the archive by creating their own fictional archives. Some create entirely imagined interviews with future revolutionaries. Some have their characters uncover the archeological remains of our present-day society, or the bones of an unusual species that never existed. Still others imagine stories connected to real objects and letters and people, taking liberties with the past. What this shows us is that archives live ahead of as well as behind us. They are living collections, and can offer us a speculative exercise that can open up narrative and political possibilities for those without archives of their own. Is an imagined archive playground, pastiche, or possibility? What happens when all three collide? And should we try making our own imagined archives? (We will.)
Readings will pull from the following books, as well as one-off short stories and essays provided in PDF form:
Odete, The Elder Femme and Other Stone Writings
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive
M.E. O’Brien & Eman Abdelhadi, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072
Untold Microcosms: Latin American Writers in the British Museum
Roberto Bolaño, Nazi Literature of the Americas
All students are invited to participate in a biweekly cowrite & chat session on alternating Thursdays from 5-7pm PST, for the following calendar year, beginning from the date of their first class.