ENG l470 - literature and interdisciplinary studies

GNDR G498 - SEMINAR in Gender Studies

Women in the archives / vandals in the stacks

This seminar offers undergraduates a practicum in archival research using the resources of the
Indiana University Archives as a site for intellectual study. “Women in the Archives” has three main
goals: to foster the habits of mind that are essential for creating and using archives; to note critical
intersections between feminist theories and theories of “archive”; and to equip you to think about
archiving as literary investigation, cultural interpretation, and public engagement.

During Fall 2010, you will have an unprecedented opportunity to explore and help process the
donations of former faculty member Cecilia Hennel Hendricks (1883-1969), whose life and work
created unusual intersections between women in the academy, women on the frontier, writing
instruction and reform, and creative literary expression. In other words, as you are learning the
fundamentals of archival work, you will also be helping to shape some important moments in
feminist, literary, and American histories. The experience you gain will be the jumping-off point for
your own research project that integrates the “how to” with the “how come.”

Here are some questions driving the course:

• How do we represent “gender” in the archives?

• How can these representations contribute to a regendering over time?
• Are invention and arrangement the same or different processes?
• What determines a good archival “method”?
• What does it mean that “we are what we collect”?
• How do we know when objects “tell the truth”?
• What are some contradictions between preservation and access?
• What principles determine who is remembered or ignored?
• Which speaks more loudly—representations of “as it was” or “as it could be”?
• When is archiving like mediation, personification, vandalism, or erasure?

Assignments will include an individual research journal, collaborative problem-solving exercises,

regular posts to the class weblog, and an individual research project with a poster presentation to
showcase your work. Course texts will include two full-length novels and a coursepack of articles. We
may also be accessing some published materials online. Offered for Hutton Honors credit.

fall 2010 • T/R 1:00-2:15 • Professor GrabaN

image credits: 1. Vintage Postcard from Shoal, Indiana. “Jug Rock 1912.” From the collection of Elizabeth McCullough. http://cvillewords.com/
2007/02/23/vintage-postcards-from-shoals-indiana/jug-rock-postcard-reverse/. 2. “The New school-mistress” wood engraving by Miss Jennie
Brownscombe. Illustrated in Harper’s Weekly, 20 September 1873, p. 817. Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c04627. 3. “Archives
Shaping Man,” political drawing by Andrzej Dudzinski.