Victorian scholar William Knight remains one of the most prolific Wordsworth scholars of the nineteenth century. His many publications helped establish Wordsworth's positive Victorian reputation that twentieth and twenty-first century scholars inherited. My particular focus is how Knight's 1889 inclusion of "Home at Grasmere" in his Life of William Wordsworth, rather than in his chronological sequencing of the poems, establishes a way to read the poem as a biographical artifact for his late-Victorian audience. Knight's detailed account of the poet's life, often told through letters and journal accounts, provides more contexts-including Dorothy's journal entries and correspondence of the early 1800s-to understand the poem than MacMillan's 1888 stand-alone edition of the poem (whose pre-emptive publication caused a small debate in 1888-89). Knight presents "Home at Grasmere" as a document of Wordsworth's personal experience and development as grounded in the Lake District. Analyzing the ways Knight's editorial decisions-both for his biography as a whole and his placement of "Home at Grasmere" within it-shape the initial reception of "Home at Grasmere" allows me to enrich the conversation about Wordsworth and the Victorian Age. Currently scholarship connecting Knight and Wordsworth remains sparser than other areas of Wordsworth commentary. However, several scholars have explored the connections between the two, and I augment their arguments by showing how Knight's invention of the poem creates an essential part of the "Home at Grasmere" archive-a term Jacques Derrida uses to describe a place or idea that houses important artifacts and determines the power of the knowledge it preserves. I argue this by showing that Knight's editorial decisions embody the characteristics of an archon-keeper or preserver of archival material-as he creates the way to read the poem as a biographical artifact while also responding to Wordsworth's own beliefs about the poetry and biographical theory. Knight's archival contribution allows Victorians to view the poem as a product of Wordsworth's developing poetic genius and helps establish Wordsworth as the great Romantic poet.

[pt] Esta pesquisa parte de um vestígio histórico: Caibi, palavra indígena com o qual foi batizada uma cidade de colonização italiana do extremo Oeste catarinense, região Sul do Brasil. Fundada a partir de uma colônia de descendentes de imigrantes europeus, na década de 1920, a história de fundação da cidade é contada no livro Caibi: Histórias e Memórias (2012) pelo ponto de vista dos chamados pioneiros, colonos ou pessoas de origem. Este último, modo pelo qual a população nativa de caboclos se referia aos novos ocupantes de suas terras. Interessado no lapso entre a narrativa oficial de fundação e os testemunhos do grupo que vivia anteriormente na região, descendente de indígenas, este trabalho faz um cruzamento entre as duas versões da história. Inicialmente, através de uma abordagem histórico-crítica sobre a narrativa local de fundação em que são utilizados estudos de revisão historiográfica, materiais de arquivos e entrevistas realizadas com os caboclos que vivem até hoje na cidade. Feita a releitura em torno da narrativa fundacional, outra parte do trabalho consiste na proposta de fundação de uma nova narrativa: um texto ficcional, no formato romance poético, que utiliza o material reunido para forjar uma nova origem para a cidade. A qual inclui caboclos e indígenas como personagens ao lado dos já conhecidos colonos. Além do caboclamento historiográfico realizado a partir do conceito de caboclo de Luiz Antônio Simas, estão presentes nesta discussão as noções de arquivo (Jacques Derrida e Michel Foucault), roteiro e performance (Diana Taylor), história e narrativa (Walter Benjamin). / [en] The starting point of this research is a historical trace: Caibi, an indigenous word that was given as the name of a city of Italian colonization in the far west of Santa Catarina. The city was officially founded in the 1920 s, from a colony of the descendants of european immigrants. It s founding history is described in the book: Caibi: Histories and Memories (2012) from the point of view of the socalled pioneers, settlers or people of origin. The latter - the expression used by the native population of caboclos to refer to the new occupants of their lands. Interested in the difference between the official foundation narrative and the testimonies of the group that originally lived in the region (descendants of indigenous people), this work compares these two versions of history. Firstly the research considers a historical-critical approach to the founding local narrative through the use of studies of historiographical review, archival materials and interviews with the caboclos who still live in the city. After looking back on the foundational narrative, another part of the work consists in the proposal to settle a new narrative: a fictional text, in the format of a poetic novel, which uses all the gathered material to create a new origin for the city - which includes caboclos and natives as characters alongside the already known settlers. In addition to the historiographical caboclamento realized from the concept of caboclo by Luiz Antônio Simas, the concepts of archive (Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault), script and performance (Diana Taylor), history and narrative (Walter Benjamin) are also present in this discussion.

They seek to embrace and understand the complexity of the man-made. They live alongside one another in a cluster - reflecting, synthesizing, producing and celebrating. They created their spaces and hierarchies through the basic principles of the wall and the column. The Sanctuary of the Man-made is an exploration of elements through a narrative that aims for a deeper understanding of human built complexity.

This thesis proposes a series of methodological suggestions covering all stages of oral history research – from the production to the dissemination of the interviews. It starts from the video interviews collected between 2003 and 2007 by the South Tyrolean historian Giorgio Delle Donne, which constitute the basis of the Oral History Archive of the Italian Provincial Library ‘Claudia Augusta’ (Bolzano). Using both oral history and archival methodology, the thesis retraces the life and the work of the historian, explaining the reasons behind the collection of the interviews, as well as the history of the library that preserves these oral sources. Furthermore, a wide-ranging reflection on the transcription of interviews illustrates how the scholarly debate has involved three major 'oral schools' (British, Italian, and American) for decades. This introduction is followed by several tests of automatic speech transcription conducted on the interviews collected by Delle Donne, which show how technology can support transcription work – which, however, always requires human work in the end. The status quaestionis of the decade-long debate on archiving oral source involving researchers, archivists, and librarians reveals the difficulty in identifying common standards for interview description. The author proposes thus some practical suggestions on how to preserve the interview and how to better integrate these sources into the library catalogue. The thesis concludes with new ideas for the development of the oral history collection kept in the ‘Claudia Augusta’ library. Despite being based on a specific case, the suggested practical advice can be used by other institutions that preserve oral sources, and also by individual researchers interested in oral history. Full accessibility, guaranteed only by a good preservation of the interviews, is a fundamental tool to promote the personal stories of the interviewees. The importance of preservation unites oral history and archival management. Oral history is a conversation about the past that happens in the present and is future-oriented; similarly, archiving means choosing, interpreting, and keeping traces that would otherwise be erased. The archive is not about the past, it is about the future.

Dominick LaCapra argues that historians continue to interpret legal documents in a hierarchical fashion that marginalizes intellectual history, as fiction is perceived to be less viable. This dissertation analyzes contemporary literary texts in the Americas that exploit such a narrow reading of documents in order to interrogate the way official history is constructed by introducing false forms of documents into their narratives. These literary texts, or what I label "con-script," are not only historical fiction, but also historicized fiction that problematize their own historical construction. Many critics propose that the new historical novel revises historical interpretation, but there exists a gap between theory and textual practice. Adapted from E.L. Doctorow's notion of "false documents," the con-script acts as an alternative that purposefully confuses fiction and nonfiction, providing tools to critically examine the authority maintained by official narratives. By revealing the fictive nature of these constructions, the con-script alerts readers to the manipulation of documents to maintain political authority and misrepresent or silence marginalized groups. The recent revision of American Studies to include a hemispheric or Inter-American scope provides a context for applying such political claims within a transcultural framework. I compare texts from English-, Spanish-, and Portuguese America in order to identify shared strategies. After a survey of the historical novel's development across the Americas and a critical theory overview, I analyze three types of con-script. "The Art of Con-Fessing" juxtaposes texts from the three languages via Jay Cantor's The Death of Che Guevara, Augusto Roa Basto's Yo el Supremo, and Silviano Santiago's Em Liberdade. These false documents present themselves as apocryphal diaries supposedly written by revolutionary leaders or activists. The authors demythologize untouchable public figures through the gaps in their "own" personal writing. "Mediations of Media" features Ivan Ângelo's A Festa, Tomás Eloy Martínez's La novela de Perón, and Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo. These journalists interrogate the role of media and political corruption within the construction of national identity; the false documents appear as newspaper clippings, magazine articles and media images. Finally, the subjective process of archiving is examined in "Con-Centering the Archive" via Aguinaldo Silva's No País das Sombras, Francisco Simón's El informe Mancini, and Susan Daitch's L.C.

This study aims to research the user perspective on interactions between authors, readers and the tagging system on the fanwork website Archive of Our Own. To answer the research questions a survey was made and sent out to users of the website via Tumblr and Reddit. In total 97 answers were received. The survey results and subsequent analysis showed us that users have similar preferences and opinions on tag usage, but have some differing opinions on the restrictions of the tag system and its affordances, as well as different views on other users’ tagging behaviors depending on if they are readers or authors. Much of the analysis stays consistent with the results of previous studies and suggestions for future research are given as a result of our own conclusions.

The dancer, choreographer, author, and pedagogue Nyota Inyoka is at the center of a research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) for a period of four years, starting in June 2019. One of the three research questions of the project is related to the more traditional area of biography research. Nyota Inyoka (1896-1971), however, turns out to be a complex case of a life story suspended between fact, fiction, narrative legend-building and self-determination; it necessitates a new form of reconstructing a lived life. This biographical approach also requires a new approach to archives as a place for discovering relevant facts, a place of validation or falsification of hypotheses and assumptions.

This thesis proposes a new perspective and critical reflection on two contemporary Latin American novels, Insensatez (2004) by Honduran-Salvadorean author Horacio Castellanos Moya and La dimensión desconocida (2016) by Chilean author Nona Fernández. Situating each novel within its respective historical context of political transition following years of violent national conflict, the politics of memory and the concomitant concern for human rights directly informs the argument. The theoretical framework which directs the analysis of each work centers on the intertextual relationship between the narrative and the novel's foundational document. In Insensatez, the intertext of interest is the official report of the Recovery of Historical Memory Project (REMHI) titled Guatemala: Nunca Más (1998) and in La dimensión desconocida the intertext is the interview with the former Chilean intelligence agent, Andrés Valenzuela, published in the magazine Cauce (1985). This thesis first reveals how Castellanos Moya utilizes various literary strategies in combination with the libreta as a narrative element to question the privileged position of testimonio in the memory works that have proliferated in postwar Central America. This thesis also demonstrates how Nona Fernández constructs a complex intertextual dialogue with the testimony of the victimizer Valenzuela to interrogate the ethical binaries that have sustained Chilean literary production on historical memory since the dictatorship. The combined analyses of these two novels enable new perceptions of how contemporary Latin American fictions can creatively employ intertextuality as a narrative tool to problematize the cultural and literary representation of a traumatic past. / Master of Arts / This thesis proposes new critical perspectives on two contemporary Latin American novels, Insensatez (2004) by Honduran-Salvadorean author Horacio Castellanos Moya and La dimensión desconocida (2016) by Chilean author Nona Fernández. Situating each novel within its respective historical context of political transition following years of violent national conflict, the analysis centers on the textual relationship between the narrative and the novel's foundational document. In Insensatez, the document of interest is the official report of the Recovery of Historical Memory Project (REMHI) titled Guatemala: Nunca Más (1998) and in La dimensión desconocida the essential document is the interview with the former Chilean intelligence agent, Andrés Valenzuela, published in the magazine Cauce (1985). This thesis first reveals how Castellanos Moya utilizes various literary strategies in combination with the libreta as a narrative element to question the favored position of testimonio in the memory works that have proliferated in postwar Central America. This thesis then demonstrates how Nona Fernández constructs a complex dialogue with the confession of the victimizer Valenzuela to challenge the ethical oppositions that have sustained Chilean literary production on historical memory since the dictatorship. The combined analyses of these two novels enable new perceptions of how contemporary Latin American fictions can creatively use textual relationships as a tool to interrogate the cultural and literary representation of a traumatic past.

The aim of this study is to investigate what archivists think about their representation in today´s media.  Popular Tv-shows and other kind of media are frequent users of archives and its contents. Without the archives, many popular TV-shows would not exist. Why is it that media shows a picture of the archives and archivists in a way that does not correspond reality? Through interviews with archivist and a person working with media, this study will look at what the archivist thinks about how they and their profession is represented in media and its consequences, and what medias viewpoint is. This study aims to answer 1) How is todays media depicting archives according to archivists? 2) What does the process look like when the archives collaborate with the media? 3) What is the archivist’s viewpoint on how their profession is depicted in media? 4) How does the media's image of the archives affect the daily work of the archivist? Previous research is more focused on how archivists and archives are depicted in film, this study focuses on the real archivists, their opinion and the pros and cons of medias use of archives.

In 1950, Roger and Louise Amory founded the Johann Fust Community Library in Boca Grande, Florida. After the death of Louise's son John Austin Amory III in 2018, John's son ­– and Roger Amory's namesake – donated a collection of Louise Amory's papers to the Library Foundation. The archive consists of 140 pages, mostly handwritten. Louise wrote most of the material between 1949 and 1954. As Executive Director of the Foundation, I solicited the help of one of our docent volunteers, and we took on the challenge of transcribing her writing. I was excited to undertake the resurrection of this 20th-century archive, and I began to research women's life-writing to set a framework. My original expectation was that the work would be diaristic, but my preconceptions required adjustment. An analysis of Louise Amory's writing soon led me to conclude that she wrote to create a record of the library's founding and that her audience was public, not private. While building the library, Louise and Roger purchased a boat, that they christened Papyrus, to provide library services to the islands around Boca Grande. Traveling aboard Papyrus introduced a maritime aspect to the Amorys' project and Louise's writing as she recorded these island-hopping journeys along with other yachting adventures. I came to see Louise's writing as a travel narrative that is also life-writing.