Archives in New Orleans and Beyond

Catalog description

Have you ever wondered what people two hundred years in the future will know, or think they know, about our society today, and how they will come to those conclusions? Undoubtedly (unless we have been replaced by omniscient robots by then), they will have to consult archives. What they find there depends on what those archives contain and how they are organized. This course is designed to get students thinking about what archives have been, are, and can be, as well as introduce them to a diverse selection of on-campus and New Orleans-based archives they might want to work with during their time at Tulane. Co-taught by a historian and a librarian, students will have the opportunity to think about archives both from the perspectives of researchers and archivists. We will be looking at “traditional” archives as well as the new possibilities for organizing, preserving, displaying, and curating knowledge that have been born with the digital revolution. We will think about archives that preserve documents, images, sounds, and even species. The course will culminate in the opportunity for each student to imagine an archive of their own—it could be of their own life, their family, school, home town, or any community they belong to—and present it to their classmates.