Edited by Tarez Samra Graban and Wendy Hayden. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2022. 354 pp. Softcover $40.00. Softcover ISBN 978-0-8093-3857-3 EPUB $25.99. EPUB ISBN 978-0-8093-3858-0.

Reviewed by Laura Semrau, Humanities Librarian, Baylor University Libraries [PDF Full Text]

As an academic librarian rather than an archivist, I approached Teaching Through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism as a novice. To my surprise, I found the book accessible and inspiring.

The volume, edited by Tarez Samra Graban and Wendy Hayden, is a collaborative work of thirty-seven authors representing a wide variety of approaches to the value, theory, and practice of archival work in undergraduate and graduate research. Much of the book centers on the intersection between archives, rhetoric, and composition studies, but it includes community collaborations, museum studies, and other partnerships as well.

While Teaching Through the Archives is divided into three sections (Archives as Text, Archives and Collaboration, and Archives as Activism), the interplay between theory and practice is woven artfully throughout. Authors often reference each other’s chapters, helping the book to function as a cohesive whole.

Why does our approach to teaching through the archives matter? How have theories of rhetorical and composition studies influenced archival theory and practice? How does bias impact archival work, past and present? At every turn, the book raises stimulating questions and does not settle for easy answers.

For example, in chapter eight, authors Robert Schwegler and Jenna Morton-Aiken describe the tension they faced as instructor and student, respectively, in a graduate seminar class: Schwegler presented traditional archival practices in his seminar, while Morton-Aiken spoke up for the nonhierarchical values found in rhetoric and composition studies. Rather than insisting on his view as the right one, Schwegler encouraged Morton-Aiken to explore her ideas. She eventually developed a framework for folksonomy hashtagging that offers a collaborative alternative to traditional archiving practices (p. 151). 

To balance much theory, the book also offers many ideas for practical application. In the first chapter, Lisa Mastrangelo describes her assignment for an advanced composition class in which students dated “orphaned” archival university photographs. The “combination of visual rhetorical analysis and slow research . . . [helped] them to simply slow down, unplug, observe, and read carefully,” she writes (p. 33). Students consulted yearbooks, newspapers, and each other to understand context and attempt to date their photos. Lisa Shaver outlines in the second chapter how she asks students to examine the historical context of archival material so they can “hone their critical skills . . . [and] define feminism for themselves” (p. 47). And in chapter fourteen, Courtney Rivard describes the benefits and challenges of asking students to write their own Wikipedia entries using research from archives. I hesitate to highlight just these few examples, since each chapter holds inspiration for application.

Teaching Through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism is a rich resource for archivists, librarians, and professors/instructors of rhetoric, creative writing, professional writing, museum studies, art, history, music, and more. Anyone looking for ways to develop students’ critical thinking skills, encourage community activism, or decolonize research methods should consider this important work.