Archive Fever

Yves and Clare are joined by Professor John Carty and Dr Jared Thomas from the South Australia Museum to learn how the museum is grappling with its collection of unidentified Indigenous human remains — an archive of bones — and explore how the museum’s historical artefacts can operate as a “cultural seedbank” to facilitate the memory of and reconnection with Indigenous knowledges.

Yves and Clare are joined by Catherine Dwyer, the filmmaker behind Brazen Hussies (2020), a history of the rebels and activists who brought the women’s liberation movement to Australia. What happens when someone’s story is in contention with the archive? What do you do with the footage left on the cutting room floor? The group discusses uncovering buried treasure, the methodology of visual storytelling, and the nitty-gritty of using archival footage in Australia.

Yves and Clare are joined by Samia Khatun, historian, filmmaker, and senior lecturer at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Samia’s latest book, Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia (2019) takes aim at the claim that the knowledge traditions of Enlightened man have superseded the epistemologies of peoples colonised by European empires. Are the archives themselves the problem, or the questions we ask of them? The group discusses an extraordinary discovery in the middle of the Australian outback, the historian’s power of time travel, and the potential of the dream archive.

Clare and Yves are joined by medical historian and public history advocate extraordinaire, Dr Peter Hobbins. In 2020 Peter’s expertise surrounding the influenza pandemic of 1918 came into play as the world grappled with the Covid-19 crisis. What can we learn from the past? Is history really cyclical, or more parallel? The group discusses an archival submarine, misgivings with a digital archive of data, and documenting the pandemic in real time (#covidstreetarchive).

Yves and Clare are joined by Lynne Kelly and Margo Neale, co-authors of Songlines: The Power and Promise (2020), the first in a ground-breaking series on “First Knowledges”. How do songlines, visualized as pathways of knowledge that crisscross the continent, act as an embodied knowledge system? What is the connection between memory and place? The group discusses the recipe for unforgettable information, the “third archive”, and the mind-altering power of bringing humanity into… everything.

Yves and Clare are joined by Mark McKenna, historian and award-winning author whose latest book Return to Uluru (2021) tells the hidden history of a story at the heart of the nation. Does the contemporary white historian present themselves in the role of a savior figure? The group discusses the emotional and ethical difficulties of working with personal archives, the significance of a storyteller’s own identity, and the gendered nature of a colonial history that seeks to penetrate the center of a nation.

Clare and Yves are joined by international archive addict, academic, and author of the new novel Take Me Apart (2020), Sarah Sligar. How significant is the role of interpretation in an archive, and does a work of fiction allow for a greater exploration of meaning? The group discusses what personality type predisposes one to become an archive addict, going “down the hole,” and assuming the role of detective amongst the documents. Is all archival research, after all, an act of snooping?

Clare and Yves are joined by interdisciplinary contemporary Australian artist Brook Andrew, whose work converses with the archives in an interrogation of the legacies of colonialism and modernism. Can confronting the trauma of the archives take us to places of freedom and healing? Where is the line between critique and trauma porn? The group discusses the archival turn in contemporary Indigenous art, the learnt voyeurism of culture, and art as a release from the archive.

Clare and Yves are joined by Jess Hill, award-winning journalist, television presenter, and author of the 2020 Stella Prize winner See What You Made Me Do (2019). Hill’s book puts perpetrators - and the systems that enable them - in the spotlight. Too often, Hill writes, “we ask the wrong question: Why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: Why did he do it?” The group discusses overcoming rage and confronting internalized misogyny, the emotional complexities of the human archive, and eating stolen academic journal articles for breakfast. If you, or someone you know, need assistance and support through domestic and family violence in Australia you can call the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service: 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Clare and Yves are joined by Gideon Haigh for a special live episode. Gideon opens the batting for Season 3 with an eloquent ramble through cricket, inquests, insanity, activism, what happens when you turn up on descendants’ doorsteps unannounced and how, once seen, certain things you find in the archives can never be unseen. Archive Fever diagnosis: terminal.