This upcoming conference to be held at the British Library Conference Centre,  London on 4 April 2016, represents an opportunity to explore the uncertain future of literary archival sources in the present age. While information technology is changing rapidly and bringing new possibilities for the democratisation of knowledge, debates remain about intellectual property, ownership and access rights to individual archives. Uneven investment in knowledge institutions contributes to a complicated understanding of how archival values can be realised – as commercial, cultural, national, global – and of how the ethics of preservation and rescue can be addressed in the face of climatic and ideological threats.

Plenary Speaker: Trudy Huskamp Peterson

The conference is an invitation to consider:
• the values of literary archives to different stakeholders – including archivists, researchers, agents, authors, publishers and estates
• the urgent questions about digital and material preservation
• the ethical and political dimensions of location and access
• archives in translation
• the shape of future archives
• the threat to endangered/precarious archives and the possibilities for collective action
• archives, languages and globalisation
• historical perspectives
• teaching with archives

Proposals for 20 minute papers [250 words max] or 3 paper panels should be sent to a.j.donnell@reading.ac.uk by 22 January 2015.
Successful presenters will be notified by 1 February 2016.
Registration Fee: £50 to include lunch and drinks reception (students and unwaged £25)

Download as PDF: Call for papers Archival Uncertainties – 4 April 2016