Circulations: Building~Navigating~Collaging~Provoking~Perturbing the Authoritarian Archive

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Histories, Museum Studies, and Postfoundational Thought (Table 5)

Abstract

This paper found its germination in our collective listening to Jill Lepore’s podcast The Last Archive. Lepore explores questions of truth and knowledge through re-engaging histories not popularized or widely remembered in public imagination. We follow and extend Lepore’s example here to archive the past, present, and future of authoritarian times in higher education. In alignment with previous work, we collage archival materials, our present authorial dialogues, and speculative and science fictions, harnessing artful methods to present a vision of authoritarianism as always-already-circulating. Rather than despairing, such awareness opens space for us to write-theorize-speculate beyond the authoritarianism of the past-present-future. Like Lepore, our archival resources are varied, offering us space to write, hope, and imagine with/in the present moment.

Authors

• Laura Elizabeth Smithers, University of Nevada, Reno

• Maureen Alice Flint, University of Georgia

• Paul William Eaton, University of Alabama