Stirrings in the Archives

Order from Disorder

Wolfgang Ernst - Translated by Adam Siegel

Like most of Wolfgang Ernst’s work, Das Rumoren der Archiv explored the concept of archival and media theory from a current cultural digital context. Ernst challenges the traditional perspective of the cultural heritage institution and how it relied on media for creating, storing and disseminating digital information. Archives have a place in a digital society, and the archivist’s role will be more increasingly vital in the future. As Ernst points out, his work will show a way out of the archive, away from the notion that the era of archive is coming to an end.

Here is the long-awaited English translation of this seminal work exploring cultural heritage before the archives, throughout history, and from today into the future.

Ernst work emphasized a need to recognize media as a method for capturing and preserving our collective cultural identity. It is vital that archivists promoted a greater awareness of how media technology augmented the creation, management, and dissemination of digital content.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 108 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-1-4422-5395-7 • Hardback • August 2015 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4422-5396-4 • eBook • August 2015 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / Archives & Special Libraries, Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / General

Stirrings in the Archives

Order from Disorder

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Like most of Wolfgang Ernst’s work, Das Rumoren der Archiv explored the concept of archival and media theory from a current cultural digital context. Ernst challenges the traditional perspective of the cultural heritage institution and how it relied on media for creating, storing and disseminating digital information. Archives have a place in a digital society, and the archivist’s role will be more increasingly vital in the future. As Ernst points out, his work will show a way out of the archive, away from the notion that the era of archive is coming to an end.

Here is the long-awaited English translation of this seminal work exploring cultural heritage before the archives, throughout history, and from today into the future.

Ernst work emphasized a need to recognize media as a method for capturing and preserving our collective cultural identity. It is vital that archivists promoted a greater awareness of how media technology augmented the creation, management, and dissemination of digital content.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 108 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-1-4422-5395-7 • Hardback • August 2015 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4422-5396-4 • eBook • August 2015 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / Archives & Special Libraries, Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / General

Author

Wolfgang Ernst (born 1959) is a German cultural and media historian. Educated at the universities of Köln, London, and Bochum, he is Professor for Media Theory and Media Studies at Humboldt Universität. His works include _Das Rumoren der Archive. Ordnung aus Unordnung_ (2002), _Im Namen von Geschichte. Sammeln – Speichern – (Er-)Zählen_ (2003_, _Das Gesetz des Gedächtnisses. Medien und Archive am Ende (des 20. Jahrhunderts)_ (2007), and _Gleichursprünglichkeit. Zeitwesen und Zeitgegebenheit technischer Medien_, and _Chronopoetik. Zeitweisen und Zeitgaben technischer Medien_ (both 2012).

Adam Siegel is languages and literatures bibliographer at the University of California, Davis. Educated at the Defense Language Institute, University of Minnesota, and University of California, Berkeley, his translations from the German and Russian include works by Hubert Fichte, Thomas Bernhard, and Viktor Shklovsky. For his translation and archival research, he is the recipient of a number of awards, including a University of California Research Grant.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Inflation of the Archive
Chapter 2. Before the Archive
Chapter 3. Writing the Archive Transitively?
Chapter 4. "A New Archivist": Foucault
Chapter 5. The Archive as "Submedial Space"
Chapter 6. The Gaps Are The Archive
Chapter 7. Excercices de silence (Silence in the Archive)
Chapter 8. Prosopopoetic Phantasms (Scenes from the Archives)
Chapter 9. DRACULArchiv
Chapter 10. Inverted Time: The Space of the Archive
Chapter 11. Textuality of History? Archives and Literature
Chapter 12. Faking the Archives
Chapter 13. Archibiograffiti
Chapter 14. The Mother of Archives: Rome
Chapter 15. In History’s Arsenal: The Archival catechon
Chapter 16. From Louis XIV to Big Brother: Monitoring
Chapter 17. Historical Bodies
Chapter 18. Collection and Dispersal: The Posthumous
Chapter 19. Dedicated to the Archive? Jacques Derrida and (the) Paul de Man’s Case
Chapter 20. "We From the Archive"
Chapter 21. Book-enwald
Chapter 22. The Mechanization of the Archive
Chapter 23. Entropy: A Rubbish Theory of the Archive
Chapter 24. In the End: Digital Anarchi(v)es

Index
About the Author

Reviews

The publisher and the translator are to be credited with bringing Ernst’s work to Anglophone attention. . . . In short: if you found Foucault and co. worth reading, you’ll enjoy this.
— Archives and Records: The Journal of the Archives and Records Association

Stirrings in the Archives

Order from Disorder

Wolfgang Ernst - Translated by Adam Siegel

Stirrings in the Archives

Order from Disorder

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