Archive Fever

By Clare Wright and Yves ReesHistory

Archive Fever episodes

December 05, 2019 09 | Queering the Archives (Live in Melbourne)
What do we know about queer lives and stories from the past?
At this special live recording at the Wheeler Centre, hosts Clare Wright and Yves Rees are joined by historian Noah Riseman and trans scholar and activist Julie Peters to discuss the absence of queer people, especially trans and gender diverse people, from conventional records and historical data.
Where else might we go to locate a trans or non-binary lineage? What records may LGBTIQA+ elders and predecessors have kept, and how we can recover and integrate queer figures and stories into our broader understanding of Australian history? Join us as we discuss how to set the record queer.
Recorded live at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne on 28 November 2019.
59 min
October 20, 2019 08 | The Gotcha Moment
How might we decolonize the archive? Clare and Yves are joined by Paul Daley, Walkley award-winning journalist and author whose work includes the column “Postcolonial” in the Guardian. Paul shares his forays into archives of colonial destruction and reflects on his addiction to the paper trail, before grappling with some thorny human questions. What do you do with a room full of bones? Should some archives be dis-assembled? And can historians afford to bite the hand that feeds?
33 min
October 13, 2019 07 | A Bomb on a Long Slow Fuse
Clare and Yves are joined by Rachel Buchanan, journalist, historian, writer and chief archivist of the Germaine Greer Archive at the University of Melbourne. How does an archivist build an archive? Who has the right to feast on these stories? And what on earth do cryogenics, radioactive waste and bread have to do with archival work? In this episode, we take a deep dive into the ethics of making and using archives. Buchanan argues for a feminist ethics of care, explains how whakapapa shapes and strengthens her work, and recalls the day her blood ran cold in the Greer Archive.
32 min
October 06, 2019 06 | The World’s Oldest Library
Clare and Yves are joined by Billy Griffiths, historian and author of the award-winning Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia. Can an archive exist in the ground beneath our feet? The group talks archaeology—a discipline which startles the border between the sciences and the humanities—as archival research, the archive as contested space, and the gendered ramifications of the Indiana Jones Effect.
30 min
September 30, 2019 05 | A White Glove Act
How do historical novelists mix research and imagination to bring stories to life? Do they get anxious about wading into academic turf? To investigate these questions, Clare and Yves chat to Jock Serong, award-winning novelist and author of Preservation—a captivating thriller based on the true story of a shipwreck in colonial Australia. Jock reflects on the archive of human character he encountered in his former life as a lawyer, shares tales of battling his editor over animal-skin water carriers, and confesses a secret love of Google Earth.
34 min
September 23, 2019 04 | A Kid with a Lolly Jar
Clare and Yves are joined by Gwenda Tavan, Associate Professor of Politics at La Trobe University, and one of Australia’s foremost experts in the history and politics of immigration and multiculturalism. How do we find the human face of bureaucratic archives? Can researchers’ detective work impact lives and policies in the present? The group discuss the emotional and intellectual meanings of archives, consider the challenges of family gatekeepers, and reflect on the power and responsibility of archival access.
28 min
September 15, 2019 03 | Inch by Inch
Clare and Yves are joined by author Chloe Hooper, whose latest book The Arsonist (2018) weaves together the story of the Black Saturday Fires out of the threads of a living archive. Can the landscape and its scars reveal a true history? The group discusses paper trails in the legal system, the question of trust, and engaging in the physical archive of landscape.
26 min
September 10, 2019 02 | Looking for the Right Truck to Pass By
Clare and Yves are joined by author Chloe Hooper, whose latest book The Arsonist (2018) weaves together the story of the Black Saturday Fires out of the threads of a living archive. Can the landscape and its scars reveal a true history? The group discusses paper trails in the legal system, the question of trust, and engaging in the physical archive of landscape.
26 min
September 02, 2019 01 | Archives Anonymous
Clare Wright and Yves Rees expose their archive addict underbellies, pay tribute to Jacques Derrida, the patron saint of Archive Fever, and share stories of catching the research bug. The first session of Archives Anonymous meets here, welcome to the group.
31 min

About Archive Fever

From the publisher's feed

Archive Fever is a new Australian history podcast featuring intimate conversations with writers, artists, curators, fellow historians and other victims of the research bug. Each episode, co-hosts…