The Global Archivalities Network is a project launched by Randolph Head (University of California, Riverside), Arndt Brendecke (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) and Hilde de Weerdt (Kings College London). We seek to connect and recruit humanists in all disciplines interested in the comparative history of archives before the modern era. The founders specialize in what may be called early modernity in various parts of the world, but we welcome those working on all forms of systematic record-keeping in any period.

Please contact Randy Head (randolph.head@ucr.edu) for further information.

A first event, entitled Global Archivalities: A Conceptual Workshop, will take place (with attendance via Adobe Connect) on May 7, 2013 from 9-11 AM (PDT).

Sponsored by the University of California Multicampus Research Group on The Material Cultures of Knowledge  and UCHRI

May 7, 2013, 9-11 AM, PDT

Archives play a fundamental role in historical research, yet archivality as a human cultural product subject to enormous variation has received little comparative attention. By forming a collaborative network of humanistic scholars interested in investigating the formation, use, and representation of archives around the globe in the pre-modern period, we seek to promote shared understandings of the decisive theoretical and empirical issues that the comparative study of pre-modern archivality must address. A second goal is to highlight the many research opportunities that the comparative study of archivality can offer, and to help create a supportive network of junior as well as senior humanists that can promote such research.

Convenors: Randolph Head (UC Riverside), Arndt Brendecke (Munich), Hilde de Weerdt (King’s College London).

Participants will include, among others: Filippo de Vivo (Birkbeck College London), Konrad Hirschler (SOAS, London), Diego Navarro Bonilla (Madrid) and Jacob Soll (USC).

Location: The workshop will be available over the internet via Adobe Connect.

Conference at Huntington Library, Jan. 25-26, 2013:

Oceanic Enterprise: Location, Longitude, and Maritime Cultures 1770-1830

“The Seeds of Disaster: Relic Hunting and Scientific Exploration”

a public lecture by Professor Adriana Craciun (University of California, Riverside)

Friday 12 Oct. 2012

5:00 pm in 300 Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley

Reception to follow

As part of the collaboration between the “Material Cultures of Knowledge” MRG and Cambridge University’s Center for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, there will be a second collaborative event in the series on “Material Cultures of the 18th Century,” to be held at Cambridge University, Sept. 27-29, 2012. The event will include a series of hands-on workshops in Cambridge museums, seminars, and public lectures, the latter of which are included on the CRASSH website:

Program for “We Need to Talk About Things”