Archives - Power, Truth, and Fiction

Chapter 23 is published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license and is free to read or download from Oxford Academic. Archives have never been more complex, expansive, or ubiquitous. Gargantuan in scale and conception yet never sufficient or complete, the archive is on the one hand a space for empowerment and expression and on the other an instrument of constraint and repression. The way in which the archive is structured, made available, and developed plays a central role in how societies define their values and ethics. Archives: Power, Truth, and Fiction is a wide-ranging and innovative volume which highlights the vibrancy and urgency of the field by bringing together contributors from many different disciplines and backgrounds, including archivists, historians, literary scholars, digital researchers, and creative practitioners. The archive of the twenty-first century is a fluid and multi-vocal space that challenges at every point the hegemonic and positivistic assumptions which shaped traditional ideas of the archive. The massive growth of digital archives further complicates the picture. Archives: Power, Truth, and Fiction is designed to help the reader draw threads through the rapidly changing and shifting multiverse of archives. The interdisciplinary and international contributors use a wide range of examples, from the Middle Ages to the Windrush scandal, to unsettle preconceptions, encourage debate, and draw out issues generated by the perpetual motion of the archive.

Product details

• Authors: Andrew Prescott, Alison Wiggins
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 14.12.2023
• EAN: 9780198829324
• ISBN: 978-0-19-882932-4
• No. of pages: 544
• Dimensions: 180 mm x 255 mm x 36 mm
• Series: Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature
• Subjects: Education and learning; Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Book trade, library system; LITERARY CRITICISM / Reference, Reference works, Archiving, preservation & digitisation, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form, Archiving, preservation and digitization