A conference exploring the uncertain future of literary archival sources in the present age

While information technology is changing rapidly and bringing new possibilities for the democratisation of knowledge, debates remain about intellectual property, ownership and access rights to individual archives.  Uneven investment in knowledge institutions contributes to a complicated understanding of how archival values can be realised – as commercial, cultural, national, global – and of how the ethics of preservation and rescue can be addressed in the face of climatic and ideological threats. Includes lunch and a drinks reception.

Plenary Speaker: Trudy Huskamp Peterson.

The conference is an invitation to consider:

• the values of literary archives to different stakeholders – including archivists, researchers, agents, authors, publishers and estates
• the urgent questions about digital and material preservation
• the ethical and political dimensions of location and access
• archives in translation
• the shape of future archives
• the threat to endangered/precarious archives and the possibilities for collective action
• archives, languages and globalisation
  • historical perspectives
  • teaching with archives

A collaboration between the University of Reading, the Diasporic Literary Archives Network and the British Library

Programme:

10.00             Opening and first plenary

11.30             Panel papers

13.00             Lunch and DLA meeting

14.15             Panel papers

15.45             Break

16.00             Panel papers

18.00             Closing plenary and drinks reception

20.00             Conference closes

Details