Activating the Archive: Archival Research as Documentary Practice

Introduces methods of archival research and investigates its use as a tool for activism within documentary practice. Uses Duke’s Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript library to gain practical experience to effectively locate, retrieve, handle, document and analyze primary source materials. Students produce original written and multimedia documentary projects that rethink notions of history, identity, memory, and loss. Explores individual and open source archives, as well as works by contemporary artists and documentarians who mediate archival materials and structures. Emphasizes the archive as a site of discovery and construction.