The Specter of the Archive

How does the archive haunt the literary and cultural study of the past? This ELN issue invites papers that will engage this question and that will investigate what demarcates the archive of literary culture. Broadly, then, this ELN issue invites papers that will theoretically, creatively, and methodologically engage the representational power of the archive. In addition to critical papers that explore cultural forms, we also invite contributors to submit creative non-fiction, short stories, poetry, analysis of museum collections, and archival projects that expand our understanding of the archive. Contributors may also address the politics of the archive through some of the following questions: How does the archive facilitate knowledge? Since our post-modern turn, has the archive become nothing more than an abstract signifier, a ghost, if you will, that haunts our current social imaginary? How does the archive maintain or disrupt power relations? Is there a racial, gendered or sexual archive? What is the relationship between the archive and historical time? How is subjectivity formed through the archive? What is the relationship between aesthetics and the archive. How have archives been subjugated and what ghosts have we all encountered in our recovery of the past? What role do archives play in the abstract and mostly metacritical idea of the nation or the hemisphere? Can we ever understand the interconnections among people, nations and places without archives? How do archives reinvent the contours of the political? Position papers, notes, essays, book reviews, and provocations are invited from scholars and artists in all fields of study.

Please send contributions and/or proposals to:
The Editors, English Language Notes
University of Colorado at Boulder
226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0226.

Deadline for final submissions is November 1, 2006.

Specific inquires regarding issue 45.1 may be directed to the issue editor, John-Michael Rivera at john-michael.rivera@colorado.edu.