Reference ≠ Endorsement / Archives, Intertextuality and Identity

ABSTRACT

REFERENCE ≠ ENDORSEMENT / ARCHIVES, INTERTEXTUALITY AND IDENTITY

This project explores archival poetics, absence and identity, expansively redefining the archival by extending conventional notions [a repository of documents] to embrace ‘theoretical archives’ which, I argue, include literary genres, ‘state apparatuses’[1], language and mass culture. The critical thesis interrogates works by Maggie Nelson, Ann Carson, Susan Howe, Claudia Rankine and Jeff Hilson, explaining why these authors treat the archival with suspicion, questioning the validity of its truth claims. Informed by thinking which includes Andrea Brady, Judith Butler, Charles Knight, Jacques Derrida, Kate Eichhorn, Audre Lorde, Marjorie Perloff, M NourbeSe Philip and Denise Riley, it examines the archival in terms of specific problematics: documentation as gendered, structurally racist and ‘governmental space’[2], controlled by a plutocratic elite. Giving equal weight to creative and source texts highlights the emotional and ethical work in the authors’ reshaping of original materials, uncovering a reframing of content to create a living archive populated with those previously un-, under- or misrepresented. My poetry collection Reference ≠ Endorsement complements the cultural work done by the five authors in widening the scope of what constitutes archival practice, positing an alternative archive through six sequences exploring domestic objects – ‘Bread’, ‘Candles’, ‘Bookshelves’, ‘Plates’, ‘Bedding’ and ‘Dining Table’ – interwoven with reflective mini-essays. Mining quotidian items from fabrics and furniture to instruction manuals and product packaging, it discovers among breadcrumbs and wax drips, tableware and nylon sheets the significance of the everyday in documenting our society and the dislocated selves consistently denied by ‘official’ apparatuses. Both elements aim to extend the thinking about poetry’s ability to challenge how and what we document and create new possibilities for the representation [re-presentation] of selves, expanding on discussions about the relevance of archive in works by Nelson, Carson, Howe, Rankine and Hilson, and offering another creative voice advocating for a more blended, inclusive, organic approach.

[1] Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation), marxists.org https://www.csun.edu/~snk1966/Lous%20Althusser%20Ideology%20and%20Ideological%20State%20Apparatuses.pdf [accessed 15 November 2022].
[2] Ana Baeza Ruiz, ‘Museums, archives and gender’, Museum History Journal, 11.2 (October 2018), 174-187 (p. 175) https://doi.org/10.1080/19369816.2018.1529268.