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THE WORLD AS ARCHIVE

THE WORLD AS ARCHIVE the nineteenth-century professionalization of historical study coincided with a growing tendency to relegate the examination of physical evidence to specialists. This indefensible split can only be condoned by those who fail to understand the inextricability of verbal texts and their physical settings. Reading any document with a critical eye involves extracting meaning from the object (the paper, the ink, the structure of the leaves, the placement of the words, and so on) as well as from the language. Yet historians tend to think of primary sources as language alone, rather than as artifacts; thus they imagine, when they use a photocopy of an archival document instead of traveling to where the original is located, that they have employed a primary record. In doing so, they are being as naive in their own way as if they had not recognized the need to approach an archive critically in the first place. And when as professors they require their students to use archival evidence but allow the students to rely on microfilms, they are failing to make a coherent case for the role of critical judgment in evaluating archival documents. Not only that: treating archives merely as collections of words http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

THE WORLD AS ARCHIVE

Tanselle, G. Thomas
Common Knowledge , Volume 8 (2) – Apr 1, 2002
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-8-2-402
Publisher site
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Abstract

the nineteenth-century professionalization of historical study coincided with a growing tendency to relegate the examination of physical evidence to specialists. This indefensible split can only be condoned by those who fail to understand the inextricability of verbal texts and their physical settings. Reading any document with a critical eye involves extracting meaning from the object (the paper, the ink, the structure of the leaves, the placement of the words, and so on) as well as from the language. Yet historians tend to think of primary sources as language alone, rather than as artifacts; thus they imagine, when they use a photocopy of an archival document instead of traveling to where the original is located, that they have employed a primary record. In doing so, they are being as naive in their own way as if they had not recognized the need to approach an archive critically in the first place. And when as professors they require their students to use archival evidence but allow the students to rely on microfilms, they are failing to make a coherent case for the role of critical judgment in evaluating archival documents. Not only that: treating archives merely as collections of words

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2002

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