Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2015

Publication Title

PMLA

Volume

130

Issue

3

Pages

615-630

Publisher Name

Modern Language Association of America

Abstract

In this essay, I show how recognizing the multiple material actants at work in an archive transforms research, in general, and Anzaldúan studies, in particular. For unraveling this new way of thinking about archival work, I borrow a genre Anzaldúa developed throughout her career: “ autohistoria- teoría . . . a personal essay that theorizes” (“now” 578n). I begin with my own experiences with the particular materials of particular archives and then move outward to develop a theory of knowledge production that is built on the accidents, messes, and intrusions that disrupted my conventional research plan. Perhaps this is what literary scholars have to offer archival studies: a good story.

Identifier

0030-8129

Comments

Author Posting. © Modern Language Association of America, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of Modern Language Association of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in PMLA, Vol. 130, Iss. 3, (2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2015.130.3.615.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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