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In the 1990s, a generation of women born during the rise of the second wave feminist movement plotted a revolution. These young activists funneled their outrage and energy into creating music, and zines using salvaged audio equipment and stolen time on copy machines. By 2000, the cultural artifacts of this movement had started to migrate from basements and storage units to community and university archives, establishing new sites of storytelling and political activism.
The Archival Turn in Feminism chronicles these important cultural artifacts and their collection, cataloging, preservation, and distribution. Cultural studies scholar Kate Eichhorn examines institutions such as the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University, The Riot Grrrl Collection at New York University, and the Barnard Zine Library. She also profiles the archivists who have assembled these significant feminist collections.
Eichhorn shows why young feminist activists, cultural producers, and scholars embraced the archive, and how they used it to stage political alliances across eras and generations.
A volume in the American Literatures Initiative
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
1 The “Scrap Heap” Reconsidered: Selected Archives of Feminist Archiving
2 Archival Regeneration: The Zine Collections at the Sallie Bingham Center
3 Redefining a Movement: The Riot Grrrl Collection at Fales Library and Special Collections
4 Radical Catalogers and Accidental Archivists: The Barnard Zine Library
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
About the author
Kate Eichhorn is Assistant Professor of Culture and Media Studies at The New School.
