People relate to the archive as if it is a distinct object with its own history. However, it is through “its” histories that the archive is invented and conceived as a self-same institution that persists with little change from antiquity to the present. Most histories of the archive share the presupposition that the archive is the walled place where documents of the past, produced elsewhere, are stored and preserved. This tripartite conglomerate of documents, bygone time and a walled space dissociates the archive from the imperial regime of which it is part and limits its existence to one of being a depository of documents. And if documents were not the archive’s raison d’être?
Professor Azoulay will also present to The Media School’s Research Colloquium series on Friday, December 1, 12:20-1:10, Franklin Hall, room 310.
Sponsored by the The Media School’s Center for Documentary Research and Practice, the School of Art, Architecture & Design’s Center for Integrative Photographic Studies, The College of Arts and Sciences, and the Borns Jewish Studies Program.