Rethinking Our Archive: A Beginning

Author(s): John C. Brereton

Source: College English, Vol. 61, No. 5 (May, 1999), pp. 574-576
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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574
ARCHIVISTS WITH AN ATTITUDE
RETHINKING OUR ARCHIVE:
A BEGINNING
John
C. Brereton
Whoever
would want to
print
the whole archive?
Leopold
von Ranke
Shose
of us who work in the
history
of rhetoric and
composition
know that over
the
past
few decades our
archive,
the
repository
of
primary
and
secondary
sources,
has been
expanding dramatically.
For
twenty years
we have been mak-
ing splendid
use of an ever-wider
range
of
material,
creating
a
constantly grow-
ing
archive. Some
parts
of this
archive,
student
papers
for
example,
were collected
quite haphazardly
and
barely
examined;
other
material,
like the
relatively
small
group
of
essays
that
appear
so often in textbooks that
they
form what
Lynn
Bloom
calls the
essay
canon,
has been in front of us all
along,
but didn't come into focus
until historians
began looking
at it in unfamiliar
ways.
And still other
material,
like
the
journals
and non-fiction
produced by
women's clubs or the
writings
that consti-
tute the rhetorical tradition
developed by
African American
women,
was
barely
col-
lected at all or existed in hard-to-find
places
and awaited the vision of scholars to
bring
it to life.
However,
the successful work of the recent
past ought
not to obscure some
uncomfortable facts: we still aren't sure what should be in our
archive,
or how access
can be
broadened,
or which tools we should
bring
to our task of
exploring
the
past.
In
fact,
we aren't sure
exactly
what we
already
have in our
archive,
or how in fact we
even define the term. As
scholarship
in rhetoric and
composition grows,
we need to
begin asking
what is
missing
from the archive and how it can
get
there. And we can
also ask some
questions
while there is still time to act: Are there
things
we should
The articles that follow are revised versions of
papers
from the
panel
"Archivists with an Attitude"
pre-
sented at the 1998 Conference on
College Composition
and Communication.
They represent
the first
stages
of a
long-term project
on the archives in
composition
studies to be undertaken
byJohn
Brereton
and Thomas Miller.
John C. Brereton is Professor of
English
at the
University
of Massachusetts-Boston. His documentary
history,
The
Origins of Composition
Studies in the American
College, 1875-1925,
received the 1997 CCCC
Outstanding
Book Award. His "Four Careers in
English,"
a review
essay published
in the
September
1998
College English,
is available online at
<http://www.ncte.org/ce/sep98/brereton.html>.
COLLEGE ENGLISH, VOLUME 61, NUMBER 5, MAY 1999
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ARCHIVISTS: RETHINKING OUR ARCHIVE 575
be
working
to
preserve right
now? What can we do now to make sure current
prac-
tices and materials will be accessible in the archives of the future?
Questions
like these should
always
be in the mind of those who conserve and
interpret
the
past,
of course. Historians
depend
on the work of their
forebears,
on
the
collecting
that forms libraries and
repositories great
and small and on the inter-
pretations
and narratives that
help shape
consciousness. Scholars
freely acknowledge
debts in the front matter of their books or in a few
footnotes,
but
only
those who
have done archival
history
know how crucial the work of their
predecessors
has been.
Three or four lines in the
acknowledgments thanking
a librarian or archivist
barely
convey
scholars' real
dependence
on the
foresight
of others. Now
it's
time to return
the favor and to consider the needs of those who will
depend
on our own
foresight.
Rhetoric and
composition
scholars have been
making
use of an archive assembled
by
others,
with other
purposes
in mind. Now that we're in a
position
to assemble
archives of our
own,
what
principles
will
guide
us? How should we consider the cre-
ation,
preservation,
and best use of
archives,
both those we've been
using
and those
we'll be
creating?
The three
essays
that follow this brief introduction are the
beginning
of a
pro-
ject
to rethink and redefine the
composition
and rhetoric archive.
They
are
general
overviews of three distinct areas of concern
and,
though
written from different
per-
spectives, keep circling
back to three
key
issues: access to
archives;
tools to use in the
archives;
and the
interpretive
acts needed to make sense of the archives in the first
place.
What
techniques
are needed to deal with archival material? Linda Ferreira-
Buckley points
to the
importance
of the historian's traditional
tools, which,
despite
so much
progress, basically
haven't
changed.
Future
historians,
depending
on their
subspecialty,
will still need some combination of
paleography
and the
appropriate
languages,
and a
working knowledge
of the relevant online and
print bibliographies.
Additionally, they'll
need to know which
journals, authors,
and
publishers
mattered
most at different
times,
and which collections can
provide
a researcher with the most
help.
Whatever the
subject
of
study,
and whoever the
historians,
they
will still need
exact
training.
How will
they get
it? Doctoral
programs
in
history, following
Ranke,
have
traditionally
had their own archive of
original documents,
which a senior his-
torian used to introduce students to the
practices
of
working
with
original
sources.
Today,
worries
Ferreira-Buckley,
students of
composition
and rhetoric are often lim-
ited to a
single graduate
course in historical studies. Can that be
enough
to
impart
the
necessary
skills?
Steven Mailloux
elegantly demonstrates that the question of how one ap-
proaches
an archive is
fraught
with
fascinating problems.
When does
interpreting
begin?
Before or after one has established a text? In
fact, the
very process
of estab-
lishing
the text is far from
simple. Examining
the intersection of
literary theory
and
textual
scholarship,
Mailloux shows how the
editing process,
and
particularly
the
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576 COLLEGE ENGLISH
correction of what seem at first like
simple typographical errors,
calls forth inter-
pretative
skills of the
highest
order.
Thomas Miller and
Melody
Bowdon contextualize the rhetorical archive and
move
beyond composition
to the rich traditions of civic
discourse,
classical rhetori-
cal
theory,
and moral
philosophy,
sites
eminently rewarding
to rhetorical
scrutiny.
Citing
a hallowed
notion,
the "civic ideal of the individual citizen
speaking pur-
posefully
for the common
good,"
Miller and Bowden wonder what kind of archive
of actual historical
practices
would enable rhetoricians to confirm or
qualify
the exis-
tence of a
genuine
tradition of civic discourse.
Ultimately,
Miller and Bowden take
as their central issue the rhetorical stance scholars
ought
to have toward their archive
and their research
processes.
Additionally,
all three
essays
confront the
key
issue of access to the archive.
Miller and Bowdon remind us that not all we need is available in the
archive,
and
much of the online material still has restrictions on its use.
Ferreira-Buckley points
out that even with
access,
historians need
appropriate
tools to make the access mean-
ingful.
Mailloux's
essay
shows that access and tools themselves aren't
enough.
The
users themselves need to
perform
acts of
interpretation
to
bring
the archive to life.
So our term "archive" is
hardly
static;
these three
essays represent
a
beginning
of what we
regard
as a
necessary
examination of both our
heritage
and our
legacy.
We
hope they help
scholars to think about the archive in new and
productive ways.
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