IS212 Values and Communities in Information Professions, Dr. Safiya Noble, Spring 2021
Final Assignment – Podcast
Creators: Michael Sokol and Hannah Whelan
Title: Finding Signs of Life: An Analysis of Subterranean Archives
Running time: 01:20:37
Date: June 11, 2021
For my final project in IS212 with Dr. Safiya Noble, I created a podcast in collaboration with Hannah Whelan titled Finding Signs of Life: An Analysis of Subterranean Archives. The podcast is a conversation exploring critical issues in LIS with a particular focus on archival theory and praxis. The conversation draws on theoretical frameworks we learned about throughout the course to unpack themes of racial formation; European hegemony; white normativity; neoliberalism and various political projects designed to concentrate wealth, power, control, and authority; state and bureaucratic control of memory; the illusion of neutrality in cultural heritage institutions; and expanding notions of ‘evidence’ within archives through counternarratives. This is all done in the interest of exploring how we can best envision and enact liberatory futures inside archives and throughout the LIS field.
The creation of the podcast was a very collaborative process, and Hannah and I co-created the outline for the conversation together. I took the lead on the recording, editing, and mixing of the audio, and I assisted Hannah in choosing the music and media clips that we incorporated throughout the podcast, which are listed at the end of the transcript.
The full-text PDF of the podcast’s transcript can be viewed and downloaded by following this link.