Workshop 3

Absence in the Archive

4pm 22nd September 2022

Perhaps as significant as what appears in any surviving collection are the myriad items which do not. Whether through the deliberate destruction of censorious relatives or marauding troops or accidental loss to mice, fire, and floods, most collections contain traces of absence: ‘shadow’ items which they once contained, but which are no longer there. How does the knowledge of destruction inform our reading of what survives, and what are the possible research avenues that lie in such absences?

Speakers: Prof Catherine Clarke (Institute of Historical Research)