Archive Fever

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.

Clare and Yves are joined by Associate Professor Michelle Arrow, historian of modern Australia at Sydney’s Macquarie University and author of The Seventies: The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia (NewSouth Publishing, 2019). Is there a power behind romanticizing the archive, or the cliche of playing archival detective? Michelle explores the rich archival basis of her work on the 1974 Royal Commission on Human Relationships, the transcripts and sensitive submissions locked away in “a bunker in the bush”. The group discusses the Commission taking stock of the impact of second-wave feminism and the ethical implications of working on the history of the not-so-long-ago seventies. Michelle also uncovers the perceived national security threat posed by a spoon.

Yves and Clare are joined by Dr Natalie Harkin, a Narungga woman, writer, poet, and author of Archival-Poetics (Vagabond Press, 2019). How do we weave our histories, our stories? Natalie talks about piecing together her family narrative through state Aboriginal records and archives in order to make sense of a fractured history and create a new space in Archival Poetics. The group considers the paradox of Natalie’s archive fever, rebuilding the archival container, the dual voices of oppression and resilience, entering the archive with rupturing intent, and weaving your way back out.

Clare and Yves are joined by environmental historian Dr Alessandro (Sandro) Antonello, senior research fellow at Flinders University and author of The Greening of Antarctica: Assembling an International Environment (Oxford University Press, 2019). What’s a historian to do when their archive is disappearing before their very eyes? Sandro discusses his journey from his local parish records in year nine, to working in the ice that comprises the Antarctic. Sandro explores the relationship between humanity and science and reveals how he was caught up in a climate-denying Fox News storm. Most importantly, he reminds us never to “leave our own archive” behind in Antarctica.

Yves and Clare are joined by internationally renowned space archeologist Alice Gorman, who you may also know as Dr Space Junk, author of Dr Space Junk Vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future (MIT Press, 2019). How do we catalog, access, and work in an archive suspended in the stars above our heads? Alice discusses her journey from indigenous heritage management to satellites and spacecraft, and reflects on the pitfalls of understanding the story of humankind as “from the stone age to the space age”. The group also discusses code-breaking, armor against mortality, colonialism and the unexpected delights of cable-ties.

Clare and Yves are joined by author Helen Garner, whose latest book The Yellow Notebook (Text, 2020) is an edited collection of the author’s diaries--or what you might call a self-archive. Helen explores the psychic necessity of diary keeping, the tendency of memory to smooth over our own crimes, and the truth to be found in self-research. The group discusses their shared motto and letters that elicit a sweat of fury, before reflecting on what it means to bear the blows in life and hand them out.