Course Requirements

4 Credit Requirements:

1. Active and engaged class participation.
2. Final Project (for example, Archival Recovery Proposal or Remote Archival Challenges Project, details forthcoming) 10 pages or equivalent. 
3. Flash Presentation on a digital recovery archive project & blog post (about 250 words). 
4. Two (2) additional blog posts (about 250 words) 

Grade Breakdown: 

• Participation 20% 
• Final Recovery Project 50% 
• Oral Presentation  20% 
• 2 Blog posts 10%

3 Credit Requirements: 

1. Active and engaged class participation.
2. Final Project (for example, Archival Recovery Proposal or Remote Archival Challenges Project, details forthcoming) 7 pages or equivalent.  
3. Flash Presentation on a digital recovery archive project & blog post (about 250 words).
4. Two (2) additional blog posts (about 250 words) 

Grade Breakdown: 

• Participation 20% 
• Final Project 50% 
• Oral presentation 20% 
• 2 Blog posts 10% 

2 Credit Requirements:  

1. Active and engaged class participation
2. Flash Presentation on a digital recovery archive project & blog post (about 250 words).
3. One (1) additional blog post (about 250 words) 

Course Objectives

The purpose of this course is to explore current trends, debates, and issues around questions of archival research, scholarly editing, and the praxis of recovery. Given the current travel and access restrictions as a result of the ongoing global pandemic, our work will also unfold amid unprecedented challenges for scholars attempting to undertake archival research remotely. As such, while we will explore a range of extant digital archives and ongoing digital recovery projects our consideration will be aimed at thinking about how you might plan on or begin to undertake individual and collective recovery projects of our own as conditions make such work more feasible again. You should come away from this course with a heightened sense of how scholars are currently imagining and representing archival recovery projects, as well as a heightened sense of how you want to locate your own projects within these contemporary debates and practices.

Learning Goals

Students successfully completing the course should be able to:

1. Understand current trends in archival research, scholarly editing, digitization, and the praxis of recovery as reflected in ongoing digital projects, in contemporary scholarship, and in the professional practices of archivists and librarians.     
2. Understand the complexities and challenges of recovery, of public access, and of scholarly editing especially in light of current restrictions on travel, physical access, and digital accessibility.     
3. Develop skills required to conduct remote archival research and to employ digital tools to present archival discoveries for a range of audiences, rhetorical situations, and digital platforms.

GC Academic Calendar

Spring 2021: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/CUNY_GC/media/CUNY-Graduate-Center/PDF/Registrar/Academic-Calendar-Spring-2021.pdf

Disability Support Services

Students with disabilities and medical conditions are encouraged to contact the Office of the VP for Student Affairs for assistance and accommodation. For information and an appointment contact the manager of Student Disability Services, located in Student Affairs, room 7301, or call 212-817-7400. While offices are operating remotely, email Clare Wilson at cwilson1@gc.cuny.edu or visit the SDS website, cuny.is/disabilityservices.

Expectations of Class Discussion and Collaboration

We will begin with the assumption that each member of the class brings vital knowledge, experience, and perspectives that will help us in our collective pursuits. Constructive contributions to class are characterized by an individual and collective reflectiveness about traditional assumptions of power and privilege and one’s willingness to actively work against reproducing inequity. In other words, how might your participation (in the way that we communicate and compute) resist reproducing systems of power and privilege? Constructive class participation fosters an atmosphere of trust that can be transformative. (For those looking for additional information on how to be an ally, you may consider reading this brief post: “How to be an Effective Ally.”) You may also want to refer to CUNY’s statement on academic integrity.

NOTE: On Readings and Changes to the Syllabus

This syllabus is subject to change. Check the website each week for updates or changes to the readings. Our selections will be reflective and responsive to student interests, needs, and class discussions. Please note that unless otherwise specified all the readings can either be accessed via the GC library website or using the hyperlinks provided on the syllabus itself.