Tuesday 24th May | 10:30 - 13:30 | Sussex Humanities Lab

Dr. Sharon Webb, Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities

This session will introduce participants to queer, feminist digital archives and will explore the ways digital humanities can support community groups and initiatives build digital archives. It will consider the creation of community archives within identity groups as a way to reclaim or promote hidden, lost and/or oppressed histories. It will then consider some tools to support the creation of digital archives, particularly, Omeka, and will provide an introduction to metadata and the concept of feminist ethics of care in archiving.

Participants are asked to bring a digital image of an object/document/photograph/etc., that they would add to an archive, and think of the reasons why. (Please do not bring the object, just a digital image of it). Participants will also have access to primary source material stored in the Lab which we can also work with as an alternative.

During the session we will write metadata and if appropriate upload to a live archive. We will be contributing to one, or both, of the following archives

• https://archives.reanimatingdata.co.uk

• https://www.queerheritagesouth.co.uk/s/queer-heritage-south/page/home

Reference material

• Eichhorn, K. The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order (2013)

• Kumbier, A. Ephemeral Material - Queering the Archive (2014)

• Cvetkovich, A., An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2003)

• Marika, C & Wood, S. Critical Feminism in the Archives in Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies (2017)

• Ashton, J., Feminist Archiving [a manifesto continued ]: Skilling for Activism and Organising in Australian Feminist Studies (2017)

• Dever, M., Archives and new modes of feminist research (2019)

• Cowan, T.L., & Rault, J., Onlining queer acts: Digital research ethics and caring for risky archives in Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory (2018)

Participants are asked to take a lateral flow test prior to attending and are asked to wear a mask during the duration of the session.