Why Archives Matter: Reconstructing the Continuity and Seriousness of Garfinkel’s Work from Unpublished Materials

• In Event: The Unpublished History of Sociology

Abstract

Sitting unpublished in archives around the world are valuable materials with an important story to tell. This is especially likely to be the case with controversial scholars who would have had difficulty getting their work published. Even famous scholars whose work has been widely embraced are able to publish only a small part of their research – primarily the part that conforms to what editors – conventionally minded – are willing to accept. This often leaves the best and most innovative parts sitting in archives. Those of us working in the Garfinkel archive (since 2005) have been using his unpublished materials and lectures to fill out his career, reconstructing a life of scholarship that would have been quite differently reviewed if he had been able to get more of it published. This work has been supported by a German grant at Siegen University’s Center Media of Cooperation continuously since 2015.

Author

• Anne Warfield Rawls, Bentley University and University of Siegen