Tag Archives: shadowarchives

Shadow Archives

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After reading The Lifecycles of African American Literature, I was very much intrigued because I always wondered how much of people’s work were never stored away or kept. The chapter goes on to tell us that simply pushing away other people’s stories and not archiving them or let alone acknowledge them; creates this erasure of the person as well as their identity, culture and of course, their work. When you purposefully do not include people’s work in archives you are damaging and controlling the flow of information as well as the history. This thought stuck to me so much after reading this quote from the chapter, “We nevertheless journey to black authors’ special collections to “search amongst the fragments of life unlived,” hoping to map out the counterfactuals that history refused to accommodate.”

The quote really stuck out to me because I remember in my journalism class a few years ago we read stories of black authors that got purposefully shadowed by the city they lived in. We also read newspaper stories about how small towns were caught lying and changing the history about how they treated black authors. That class and now this have been the only times that we have ever discussed about black history and stories being shadowed by people. It honestly bothers me a lot about people would misuse the archive to purposefully erase people. I have been more and more interested in archives because I too also believe that when you archive something, you treat it with care because you still believe for it have some life even though we “discard” them because they are “dead”. (2)

Overall, I learned a lot more about shadow archives and what authors were blocked off from society who didn’t get the recognition they truly deserved. Archives are very much important, but it is more important to document the “correct” information and I quote correct because whoever is the one archiving the information; they are labeling it with their bias. All and all, a lot of things to see and bring up to light, so that stories, people and history are not taken away from society.

Week 12: Archival Theory

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In “Shadow Archives,” Jean-Christophe Cloutier talks about something he calls the “shadow books,” meaning the stories and writings that were lost, removed, or never finished. I really like this image of shadows because it shows how much of literature and history stays unseen. These “shadow archives,” as he calls them, keep traces of what was forgotten or left out, especially in African American writing.

Cloutier explains how many Black authors had to fight to make sure their work and their stories were not erased. He writes about Richard Wright, who left behind a lot of unpublished and unfinished work that only became known later. I found this really moving. It made me think about how much effort it takes to be remembered and how unfair it is that some voices have to work so hard just to survive in history.

What also stood out to me is Cloutier’s idea of the “lifecycle” of records. He says that archives, like people, have their own lives. They are created, lost, found again, and brought back to life. I love that thought because it makes archives feel like living things, not just boxes full of paper. The title of the introduction, “Not Like an Arrow, but a Boomerang,” fits perfectly with this. It is like these lost stories keep coming back, even after being gone for so long.

Reading this made me think about how much power archives have. They decide what gets remembered and what disappears. I also thought about how digital archives today might help give space to voices that were ignored before. Maybe technology can make it easier for people to find and share the things that were once hidden.

For me, Cloutier’s idea of the “shadow archive” feels both sad and inspiring. It is sad because it shows how many writers were pushed into the shadows. But it is inspiring because it also shows that their words did not disappear forever. They waited, like echoes, to be found again. I think that is what Cloutier means by the boomerang, that history can return and that the stories that were lost can still find their way back to us.