ARCHIVAL METHODS:

ROMANCE AND RITUAL

AMBER TARIQ
24252161002
 INTRODUCTION OF INTRODUCTION OF
ARCHIVAL METHODS ROMANCE AND RITUAL

ROMANCE OF ARCHIVE
CONTENTS RITUAL OF ARCHIVE

CONCLUSION
ROMANCE AND RITUAL
1
INTRODUCTION OF
ARCHIVAL METHODS
 It emphasizes the importance of archival research in English Studies, especially
in literary, historical, and cultural research.
 It outlines how archives serve as vital repositories of primary sources—such as
manuscripts, letters, diaries, photographs, and unpublished documents—that
offer unique insights into literary texts, authorship, and historical contexts.
 INTRODUCTION
ENTERING THE ARCHIVE
 Not just a building or collection—it is an ideological,
emotional, and performative space.
 Steedman breaks with the idea that archival research is
Steedman opens the chapter by asking
us to rethink the experience of the only technical or objective.
archive not merely as a research space
but as a site of emotional, symbolic, and
institutional engagement. ARCHIVE AS A
MULTIFACETED SPACE
 More than mere repositories of documents.
 They are dynamic spaces where emotions,
desires, and structured practices converge.
 HIGHLIGHTS
How engaging with archives involves not just The complex and constructed nature of archives,
discovery, also critical interpretation, since archives where what is preserved, catalogued, and made
are not neutral spaces but are embedded with accessible is shaped by institutional, political, and
power dynamics and selection biases. cultural forces.

Necessity of methodological awareness when The chapter frames archival research as both a
working with archival materials, including scholarly practice and a critical activity, where
understanding provenance, context, and the researchers must interrogate what is included and
processes of archival formation and curation. what is absent in the archival record
 She discusses the portrayal of archives in

KEY ASPECTS
literature, citing works by José Saramago (All
the Names, 1997), Ismail Kadare (The Palace
of Dreams, 1981), and Martha Cooley (The
Archivist, 1998).

She begins by highlighting the evolving

definitions of 'archives' and 'the archive,' These novels explore themes of registration,
noting that these terms have acquired a naming, and cataloging, often highlighting
broader range of meanings than ever before. the more sinister aspects of archival work
and its ties to authority and control.

Steedman references Jacques Derrida's

Archive Fever (1995), which traces the term She touches upon the influence of Michel
'arkhe' to the Greek city-state, signifying a Foucault's perspectives on archives,
place of beginnings and the origin of power. suggesting that their 'magical quality' lies in
their ability to reflect societal structures and
power dynamics.
Derrida's analysis suggests that the modern
fascination with archives is deeply connected
She emphasizes that while philosophical and
to a Freudian desire to recover lost names and
literary explorations provide valuable
objects, emphasizing the emotional and
insights into the allure of archives, they offer
psychological dimensions of archival research.
limited guidance on the practical
methodologies of archival research.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
AND EVOLUTION OF ARCHIVES
From Sacred Repositories to Public Institution
 Historically, archives were often sacred or restricted spaces, accessible only to select individas.  
 Over time, they have evolved into public institutions, yet the rituals governing access and use remain,
reflecting enduring power structres.

 The transformation of private collections into public archives during the Enlightenment period marked a shift
towards democratizing knowledge, yet access was still mediated by stringent rituals and protools.

Digital Archives and Changing Ritual

 The advent of digital technology has transformed archival practices, altering both the romance and ritual of reserh.
 While digital archives offer broader access, they also introduce new rituals related to digital literacy.
 POLITICS OF ARCHIVE:
POWER AND SILENCE
PERSONAL ENTANGLEMENTS:
 Steedman discusses how emotions drive method:  Doesn’t romanticize archives naïvely.
 She reminds us that archives are not democratic.
“Researchers may not only find things in  And voices they silence are just as important as those they
the archive—they may also find preserve.
themselves.” “Absences speak. Silences in the archive
are records of systemic exclusion.”
 This is especially true for:

Postcolonial researchers tracing colonial violence

EXAMPLE: COLONIAL ARCHIVE
 GAYATRI SPIVAK
Queer scholars finding traces of hidden lives  RANAJIT GUHA

Feminist historians encountering absences

 INTRODUCTION OF
2 ROMANCE AND RITUAL
 Steedman delves into the emotional and procedural dimensions of engaging with
archives, illustrating how the pursuit of historical knowledge is often intertwined with
romanticized quests and structured practices.
 She frames archival methodology not merely as a technical process but as an
affective and imaginative journey, influenced by cultural narratives, literary tropes,
and the researcher’s own subjectivity.
 She explores the deeply emotional, symbolic, and ritualistic dimensions of archival
research.
 MEANING
The desire, mystery, and
emotional pull of the archive The procedures, rules, and power
structures that govern archival access.
Emotional and mythical
dimensions of archival work Methodical, procedural, and often
ceremonial behaviors associated with
Affective, often idealized, longing for working in archives.
connection with the past, the thrill of
discovery, the narrative of origins Structured, often bureaucratic or
institutionalized procedures, permissions,
and protocols required to access and work
within archives.
“The archive is a place of dreams…a place
of origin and of longing. It promises
answers and sometimes gives nothing.”
“The archive has always been a
place of dreams.”
KEY ASPECTS
Romance and Ritual frame the psychosocial and material
relationship between the researcher and historical documents.

While often seen as dry, bureaucratic, or strictly procedural, archival

research, Steedman argues, is deeply emotional, structured by ritual, and
charged with desire.

These concepts offer two lenses through which we can grasp how
archives function not only as repositories but as sites of power, longing,
and exclusion.

Archives serve as more than mere repositories of historical documents.

They are dynamic spaces where the emotional allure or desire
(romance) and the formalized proceduresdiscipline (ritual) intersect.
3 ROMANCE OF ARCHIVE
 The idea of romance does not refer simply to love or sentimentality, but rather to the emotional,
imaginative, and sometimes idealized engagement researchers and archivists develop with
archives and the act of historical discovery.
 The concept of "archival romance" captures the thrill of uncovering forgotten narratives, the allure
of piecing together fragmented histories, and the desire to recover voices lost to time.
 Scholars often speak of the archive as a space filled with mystery, absence, and longing—a place
where the researcher embarks on a quest, driven by curiosity and a sense of purpose.
 This romanticized relationship with the archive can shape research questions, guide interpretive
choices, and influence how history is written.
 At the same time, it invites critical reflection on how desire, nostalgia, and power intersect in
archival practices, calling attention to the subjectivity and selectivity inherent in the construction
of memory and knowledge.
 ROMANCE Steedman interprets this as a form of "magical
realism," where the historian's role is to make
the dead "walk and talk" through storytelling.
References Jules Michelet, a 19th-century Discusses how 19th-century historians likened
historian, who vividly described his experiences their archival pursuits to chivalric quests.
in the French National Archives.

They envisioned themselves as knights

embarking on arduous journeys to uncover
hidden documents, akin to rescuing sleeping
Michelet portrayed the act of inhaling the dust
princesses from obscurity.
of old manuscripts as a means of communing This metaphor underscores the challenges and
with the past, breathing life into historical dedication inherent in archival research.
figures through the historian's imagination.

Bonnie Smith's work is cited to highlight how

This notion aligns with the Romantic ideal of these historians viewed their endeavors as
resurrecting the past, suggesting that historians, heroic missions to awaken dormant histories,
through their dedicated efforts, can animate reflecting a deep-seated romanticism in their
historical narratives. approach to archival work.
ARCHIVAL DEFINITION

PRACTICE
"Romance" here doesn’t refer to love stories but to mythologized, quasi-magical allure of
archive — desire to resurrect the past, to uncover secrets, to “make dead walk and talk.”

EXAMPLES
Martha Cooley’s The Archivist
Ismail Kadare’s The Palace of Dreams
José Saramago’s All the Names
These novels reflect and satirize mythos of the archive: a space where truth is hidden, and
only the initiated can find it.

“There has never been a

HISTORICAL & LITERARY ALLUSIONS
time when the word
‘archive’ had so many Jules Michelet described his archival work as a sensuous, almost erotic encounter with
history as he inhaled the dust of manuscripts, claiming it was like breathing in the past.
meanings.” “I had to breathe it, that dust of the archives, mixed with the smell of time.”
(18) — Michelet (quoted by Steedman)

Bonnie Smith’s critique: She explains how male historians imagined themselves as heroic
figures, waking sleeping women (history) with their scholarship — a narrative drawn from
chivalric romance.
Steedman herself critiques these tropes, recognizing them as gendered and ideological
constructions, but she also acknowledges their emotional power and how they influence
scholars’ affective investment in archives.
 THE DESIRE “Romance of recovery” has driven feminist, queer, and postcolonial
scholars to unearth forgotten or erased voices.
Feminist literary scholars__Aphra Behn, Mary Astell, and other ewomen
writers.
It’s the narrative pull, the hope of discovery, the Black feminist archives__the lives of women like Harriet Jacobs.
desire to touch the past. Postcolonial researchers__documents in colonial archives to reconstruct
“The archive offers the fantasy of subaltern histories (e.g., Ranajit Guha’s Subaltern Studies).
total recovery—the idea that if we just “The longing is not only for knowledge, but for justice—
dig deep enough, everything can be known.” to give voice to those who were historically denied one.”

Michelet and the Breath of the Dead Ironically, sometimes most romantic element is not what’s found, but what
“I took in the dust of the dead... I is missing.
breathed in history.” “The absence becomes a kind of presence. The missing
document becomes an imaginative space.”
Michelet’s description reveals an almost sensual This is where Saidiya Hartman comes in: she coined the method of critical
and haunting interaction with the archive. fabulation, combining archival evidence with speculative storytelling to fill in
He equated research with resurrection.
silences in the archive (e.g., enslaved girls' lives).
4 RITUAL OF ARCHIVE
 The concept of ritual extends beyond traditional religious or cultural practices and becomes a
valuable lens for understanding how records are created, preserved, accessed, and interpreted.
 Rituals in this context refer to the structured, repetitive, and often symbolic actions embedded in
archival processes—such as classification, documentation, preservation, and retrieval of materials.
 These actions are not merely administrative; they reflect deeper cultural, institutional, and
epistemological values. Researchers have increasingly recognized that archival practices are
shaped by ritualistic behaviors that legitimize authority, construct memory, and regulate historical
narratives.
 Examining these rituals reveals how archives function not only as repositories of information but
also as sites of power, identity formation, and meaning-making within both historical and
contemporary frameworks.
 RITUAL The chapter further explores the emotional
and psychological dimensions of archival work.
References Auden's poem "Homage to Clio,"
that portrays Muse of History as silent
Steedman examines the rituals associated with observer, highlights the challenges historians
archival research, emphasizing the structured face in interpreting the past.
and ceremonial aspects of working within
archives.
This underscores the idea that, despite rituals
and romantic notions, archival research is a
Reflects on physical and emotional demands complex endeavor requiring both passion and
of archival work, including the meticulous critical analysis.
planning, from checking train schedules to These rituals ensures the integrity and
enduring long hours in less-than-ideal authenticity of the research process.
conditions, all in pursuit of historical
documents.
She provides practical advice for navigating
These rituals, while seemingly mundane, are archives, such as the necessity of using pencils
integral to the historian's craft, reflecting a instead of pens and the importance of
commitment to uncovering and preserving the understanding the origins and purposes of the
past. documents being consulted.
ARCHIVAL ELEMENTS

PRACTICE
 Wearing Goves  Signing in with credentials  Sitting in silence
 Ordering materials in advance  Only using pencils

PSYCHOANALYTICAL LENS PRACTICAL CHALLENGES

Steedman shows how rituals reflect a desire Incidents of missed trains, uncomfortable
to control time and memory. reading rooms, bureaucratic restrictions —
Archive becomes a space where researcher these are part of the sacrificial ritual.
confronts loss, absence, and the unattainable They reinforce that knowledge must be
completeness of historical truth earned through discipline and endurance.

“To work in an archive is to DERRIDA’s ARCHIVE FEVER & FOUCCAULT

submit to its order.”  Foucault didn’t see the archive merely as a place but as the system of discursivity, the
rules by which statements are made.
 For Steedman, the archive is both material and metaphorical: a place of paper and
dust, but also a symbol of institutional power and epistemological authority.

 Derrida talks about the “compulsion to archive” — the desire to collect and preserve,
driven by anxiety about loss.
 Steedman draws on this to show how romance and ritual are coping mechanisms
against the inevitability of forgetting.
 THE DISCIPLINE Signing in at the desk
Using pencils, not pens
Wearing gloves
Waiting days for files to be “retrieved”
Following a dress code (in some elite archives!)
These rules signal that the archive is a controlled zone—a sacred temple
of knowledge, but only for the initiated.
The Archive as a Sacred Space
“Ritual excludes. It protects the authority of the archive.”
Ritual refers to the formalized procedures,
permissions, hierarchies, and codes
involved in accessing and using archives. The British Museum Reading Room
In the 19th century, gaining entry to the British Museum required letters
of recommendation from university professors. Working-class or women
“You do not just walk into the archive.
researchers were often denied.
You are granted access. You follow its
codes.” Virginia Woolf was once refused access to a manuscript collection.
E. P. Thompson wrote that archives were “inhospitable to the working
historian.”
This ritualized exclusion mirrored social hierarchies: gender, class, race.
5 ROMANCE AND RITUAL
 Archives evoke romance: longing for truth, past, justice.
 They are governed by ritual: controlled access, structured protocols.
 Both aspects are embedded in historical power structures.
 The modern world has transformed, not erased, these forces.
 Archival research remains an emotional, critical, and ideological practice.
 The relationship between romance and ritual in archival research is complex and interdependnt.
RELATIONSHIP
 Steedman insists that romance and ritual are not opposites but mutually reinforce one another. Romantic desire to uncover
hidden truths propels individuals into disciplined rituals of archival reseach. Conversely, rituals themselves can intensify the
romantic allure, as structured journey through archive becomes a quest filled with anticipation and discovry.
“Romance thrives within the constraints of ritual. It is the very
inaccessibility of the archive that makes its contents so desirable.”

ROMANCE: Emotional pull

Institutional rules :RITUAL
Desire for discovery
Hierarchical gatekeeping
Dream of justices
Bureaucracy of authority
Longing for connection
Structured distance
Romance fuels the passion and
curiosity driving researchers Ritual provides the framework
to uncover hidden stories. and discipline ensuring
systematic and ethical
engagement with materials.
 WHY IT MATTERS
The ideas of romance and ritual are not trivial
embellishments of scholarly work — they reflect
emotional, intellectual, and cultural investments
Remind us that research is researchers bring to the archive.
not neutral — it is shaped
by desire, belief, struggle,
and hope. Archival work is also about:
 Confronting silence of past
 Performing acts of historical resurrection
 Navigating institutional authority
Steedman’s framing of romance  Participating in cultural memory
and ritual challenges researchers
to see archival work as emotional
and political. Romance keeps us curious and
committed.
Ritual reminds us of structures
“Romance and ritual are not opposites. They are
the twin forces that shape how knowledge is that filter knowledge.
remembered—and forgotten.”
THEORIES
THEORETICCAL FRAMEWORK
 Derrida – Archive Fever (1995)
 Foucault – The Archaeology of Knowledge

CONTEMPORARY THEORIES
 Feminist Archival Studies
 Postcolonial and Critical Race Theory

THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
Authority  Authenticity
 Accessibility

“There is no archive without the outside...The archive always produces more than it contains.”
(Jacques Derrida)
“The researcher performs obedience to the institution — and in doing so, becomes legitimate.”
(Carolyn Steedman)
“The archive’s authority depends on its incompleteness.”
(Carolyn Steedman)
“The archive is not silent; it speaks its exclusions.”
(Saidiya Hartman__“Venus in Two Acts”)
 Kecia Ali's Exploration of Romance Fiction Archives

THEORETICAL
In her study of romance, Ali reflects on emotional engagement with archival materials:
"The archives contain various and sundry things: travel brochures,
press clippings, advertisements for books... The files are

SUPPORT more complete for some years than for others."

— Romance Fiction in the Archives

Ali's work highlights the personal connections and unexpected discoveries that make
archival research a romantic pursuit.

Jacques Derrida's "Archive Fever"

Saidiya Hartman's "Critical Fabulation"
Derrida introduces the concept of "archive fever",
Addressing the limitations and absences within archives, Hartman
describing it as an obsessive longing to recover and
proposes "critical fabulation":
possess the past.
"The absence becomes a kind of presence. The
“The archive has always been a place of dreams."
missing document becomes an imaginative space."
He emphasizes that this longing is paradoxical; while
By blending historical and fictional narratives, researchers can
we seek completeness, the archive's inherent gaps
reconstruct silenced histories, exemplifying the romantic endeavor
and omissions often lead to a sense of
to connect with lost subjects.
incompleteness and longin.
Michel Foucault’s
Postcolonial Theory 
The Archaeology of Knowledge
The act of uncovering hidden stories is romanticized as form of justice and restoration.
The archive is a regime of power that
However, this pursuit is fraught with challenges, as archives themselves are products
structures:
 What is sayable of colonial power structure.
 What is preserved In Romances of the Archive, Suzanne Keen discusses how contemporary British novels
 What is erased portray archival research as a romantic quest, intertwining personal discovery with
historical investigation.
Steedman extends these ideas:
"These stories of archival research occur not only in postmodern novels
“The archive begins in exclusion.
and literary fiction, but also in popular sub-genres... They unabashedly
Ritual is not about reverence; it is
interpret the past through its material traces."
about access.”
Psychoanalysis and Unconscious Desire
In early modern, archives were Allure of the archive can be seen as a manifestation of unconscious desire to connect
custodians of royal, clerical, or state with origins and foundational narrative. Archive becomes a space where individuals
knowledge. To enter them was to: seek to uncover repressed memories or lost histories, paralleling the psychoanalytic
 Have status process of bringing the unconscious to light.
 Obey power Katherine Churchill reflects on her emotional engagement with medieval poet John
 Gain access to national memory Gower's manuscripts, describing a profound connection that transcends tim:
Ritual here functioned to gatekeep "What is it about the archive that makes us fall in love?...
history — preserving not just paper Archival research is always a kind of heartbreak; the more
but power. I learn... the more I nurse a yearning for all I'll never understand."
 CASE STUDIES Digital Archives and New Rituals
 The advent of digital archives has transformed traditional rituals:
 Access has become more democratized, yet new rituals emerge,
like navigating digital catalogs and understanding metadata.
Feminist Archive
 The Orlando Project (University of Alberta) Example: Online databases require researchers to
 Digital feminist archive documenting women writers develop new skills in digital literacy, altering the
 Merges romance (desire for inclusion) with ritual traditional archival experience.
(metadata coding) EXAMPLES

Postcolonial Silence and Saidiya Hartman Community Archives

 In “Venus in Two Acts”, Hartman reflects on slavery archives:  Grassroots archival projects challenge conventional rituals by
“The archive is built upon silences. What is missing prioritizing inclusivity and community engagement:
is as instructive as what is found.” Example: Local history initiatives often involve collaborative
curation, redefining the rituals of authority and access.
 She practices “critical fabulation”—a blend of history and imagination to
re-voice silenced subjects.
HISTORICAL AND MODERN
Aspect Traditional Archive Digital Archive

Rooted in the physical__touch, Desire through screens, search bars,

Romance dust, paper smell metadata
Physical access, bureaucracy, Login credentials, copyright
Ritual hierarchy, permissions restrictions
Elitist, hierarchical Democratic (but still curated and
Accessibility often paywalled)
Emotion Personal communion with history Sense of distance, data overload

British Library Manuscript Room Internet Archive, Europeana, Digital

Example Bodleian
Scholarly Example Leopold von Ranke (history “as it Saidiya Hartman (“critical fabulation”
really was”) in absences)
6 CONCLUSION
 Understanding archival research requires acknowledging the intertwined nature of
romance and ritual.
 The passionate quest for knowledge (romance) operates within, and sometimes
against, the structured practices (rituals) that define archival institutions.
Recognizing this duality enriches our approach to archives, allowing for a more
nuanced and critical engagement with the past.
Carolyn Steedman’s chapter reclaims archival research not as dry,
bureaucratic labor but as a space of:
 Passion and patience
 Longing and legitimacy
 Memory and loss

She does not deny the importance of method but insists on

recognizing the human elements that make archival work meaningful.
“Romance and ritual are not distractions from research;
they are the scaffolding on which research rests.”

As we transition from the romantic archive of the past to the digital

archives of the present, these themes remain—transformed but not
erased.
Understanding them helps scholars maintain critical awareness while
embracing the affective dimensions of research.
“To do archival research is not merely to find sources.
It is to enter a deeply affective, historically
determined, and institutionally mediated space.”
THANKS FOR WATCHING