Hearing Voices in the Archive: Wartime Correspondence and the Road to Expanded Source Criticism

Activity: Talk or presentationAcademic

Description

This contribution reflects on digital transformations and the ‘analog’ provenance of historical archival collections of so-called ‘egodocuments’. The increasing availability and usage of digital-born or digitised records in historical scholarship has created a momentum to critically reflect on transformative interactions with(in) the archive when doing (digital) historical research. The recently digitised wartime letters collection (1935-1950), held by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies, serves as a case study to illustrate a need to expand current practices of source criticism in historical scholarship in the digital age. During the workshop, I presented some exemplary cases and offer some guiding principles and strategies for what I call ‘expanded source criticism’.
Period23 May 2024
Event titleExploring Historical War Experiences through Digital Sources and Methodologies
Event typeWorkshop
LocationTampere, FinlandShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • source criticism
  • archival studies
  • archival science
  • archival transformations
  • personal correspondence
  • egodocuments
  • digitisation
  • records continuum model
  • provenance research
  • curatorial voice
  • World War II
  • History of Experiences