16919 - Modern and Contemporary Archive Administration for Special Purposes

Learning outcomes

With the historiographical discussion on the one hand, the examination of specific situations on the other, at the end of the course the student reaches an advanced understanding of the problems of the discipline and receives adequate training on the technical-operational side

Course contents

This course in Modern and Contemporary Special Archival Science offers an advanced curriculum structured into two thematic areas.

The first module, "Is It Really So Obvious That Photographic Archives Exist?", offers a critical analysis of the nature, structures, and formation and evolutionary mechanisms of the photographic archive as a documentary phenomenon, from Daguerre to Instagram. Spanning over a century and a half of practices in the production, preservation, and use of images, this module questions the very legitimacy of the concept of a "photographic archive," challenging traditional archival categories in the face of the hybrid, serial, and often unstructured nature of visual documentation. It will examine the transformations brought about by the shift from analogue to digital and by the rise of social media platforms, in order to understand how the very notions of authorship, context of production, and visual memory are being reshaped. 📷

The second module, "The Archives of Others", continues the comparative inquiry begun in the previous module, this time focusing on a comparison between the French and Indian archival systems. It will examine their respective normative and institutional traditions — from the centralist, Jacobin legacy of the French model to the post-colonial stratification of the Indian system — bringing to light profoundly divergent logics of memory organization, shaped by distinct historical, political, and cultural trajectories. The aim is to provide students with further critical tools for reading the archive not as a neutral, universal structure, but as a historically situated apparatus, capable of reflecting power relations, colonial legacies, and differing conceptions of collective memory. 🗂️

Readings/Bibliography

General Introduction
Isabella Zanni Rosiello, Gli archivi tra passato e presente, Bologna, il Mulino, 2005, pp. 7-121
Stefano Vitali, Di angeli, di paperi e di conigli, ovvero dello strano mestiere dell'archivista, in "Archivi per la storia", 2001, pp. 179-187

Course Bibliography

Module 1 — "Is It Really So Obvious That Photographic Archives Exist?"

1. Dario Taraborrelli, La fotografia in archivio e gli archivi fotografici, in «Documenta. Rivista internazionale di studi storico-filologici sulle fonti», VI (2023), Pisa-Rome, Fabrizio Serra Editore, pp. 115-119. DOI: 10.19272/202313801008. Record and abstract on LibraWeb [https://www.libraweb.net/articoli3.php?chiave=202313801&rivista=138&articolo=202313801008 ]
2. Tiziana Serena, L'archivio fotografico. Possibilità derive potere, in A.M. Spiazzi, L. Majoli, C. Giudici (eds.), Gli archivi fotografici delle soprintendenze. Tutela e storia, conference proceedings (Venice, 2008), Crocetta del Montello, Terra Ferma Edizioni, 2010, pp. 103-125. Open access PDF (University of Florence) [https://flore.unifi.it/bitstream/2158/396748/1/Serena_Archivio_Fotografico_2010.OK.pdf ]
3. Lucia Bainotti, Alessandro Caliandro, Alessandro Gandini, From Archive Cultures to Ephemeral Content, and Back: Studying Instagram Stories with Digital Methods, in «New Media & Society», 23(12), 2021, London, SAGE Publishing, pp. 3656-3676. DOI: 10.1177/1461444820960071. Open access PDF (University of Milan) [https://air.unimi.it/handle/2434/773354 ]

Module 2 — "The Archives of Others" (France / India)

1. Michel Duchein, Archives in France: The New Legislation of 1979, in «Archivaria», no. 11, January 1980, Ottawa, Association of Canadian Archivists, pp. 127-133. Full text, open access (archivaria.ca) [https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/10843 ]
2. S.N. Prasad, Archives in India, in «Archivaria», no. 7, Winter 1978-79, Ottawa, Association of Canadian Archivists, pp. 52-59. Full text, open access (archivaria.ca) [https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/10683 ]
3. Ann Laura Stoler, Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance, in «Archival Science», 2, 2002, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 87-109. DOI: 10.1007/BF02435632. Open access PDF (University of Michigan) [https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/41825 ]

Non-attending students are invited to contact the instructor to arrange a supplementary reading list.

Teaching methods

Lectures and visits at the Ravenna State Archives (Ravenna), the Teatro delle Albe Archive (Ravenna) and other archival institutes in Bologna and Ravenna.

Assessment methods

Oral interview and preparation of a written report on the activities carried out in the archive (to be delivered one week before the exam). The knowledge of the topics discussed during the lessons and of the recommended bibliography, the understanding of the use of research tools and the critical and methodological skills developed by the students will be evaluated.

Teaching tools

Slides and sheets of theoretical and institutional history analysis, examples of digitized documentation and inventory tools will also be analyzed during the lessons to deepen their use for research and interpretation of sources.

Other cultural products such as films, video games, and novels will also be considered to analyze the diffusion of archival categories, discussed in class, within popular culture.

During visits to the archives, the original documents will be analyzed directly.

Office hours

See the website of Dario Taraborrelli