51³ÉÈËÁÔÆæ

Course Description

Summary

A course on the creation, maintenance and philosophical/social implications of digital archives. The Archive, as a concept, suggests important questions about history, power, memory, access, self-determination, public and private spheres, etc. This course will address the Archive as a powerful idea, through reading and discussion, but also as an active and ongoing construction, as we undertake a variety of class projects in the practice of digital archive building. In the work of producing these archives, we will emphasize the use of the classroom as a place not only for the dissemination of pre-existing information, but for the actual production of knowledge. In groups, we will begin work on a range of digital archive projects - for example, a Bennington Dance History Project, or similar. In doing so, we will investigate and discover existing documents and records, then design (and potentially implement) a system or database to physically and/or digitally centralize it as a collection.