Call For Chapter Proposals
Book Title :Intangible Archives (Working Title)
Editors: Jeannette A. Bastian, Professor Emerita, Simmons University.
Stanley H. Griffin, Head, Dept. of Library and Information, University of the West Indies.
Introduction
In the primarily text-driven archival discipline, intangible expressions are too often discounted as records. And yet these expressions, created by societies world-wide and in multiple formats, are carriers of significant information, recorders in themselves of a variety of beliefs, history, customs, and cultures. Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) as defined by UNESCO includes orality, performance, social practices, festivals, and generational knowledge, and can also encompass craftsmanship, landscapes and memory texts, but to what extent are these cultural signifiers also the archival records of the societies that produce them? And to what extent are these active forms of documentation and memory seen as valid and equal archival representations in ways that textual works are traditionally perceived to be?
Seeking essays from an international range of cultures and traditions, we invite chapters on intangible archives for an edited book to be published by Bloomsbury Press.
Possible topics include:
· Exploring the ways in which societies 'document' themselves through intangible expressions.
· Whether intangible expressions are archival within traditional understandings of records or whether they are indicative of new understandings of what an archive could be.
· Tensions between intangible and tangible archives, between community memory and official records.
· How community rituals and practices serve as record formation and archival processing
· Institutional configurations to center intangible cultural heritage collections and holdings.
· Ethical considerations and challenges for inclusion of intangible cultural heritage materials within archival collections.
· Digital culture as intangible cultural heritage archives.
· Preserving the intangible.
Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to Jeannette Bastian at jbastian6@gmail.com and Stanley Griffin at stanley.griffin@uwi.edu by March 25, 2026.
Deadlines:
Submission of Proposals: March 25, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: April 10, 2026
Full Chapter Submission: June 30, 2026
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[Jeannette ] [Bastian]
[Professor Emerita]
[Simmons University]
[Boston] [MA]
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