On Evidence: Archives, Museums, and Prisons

On Evidence: Archives, Museums, and Prisons
HIST 270, Fall 2023
Instructor: Marianna Hovhannisyan  
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This course introduced an interdisciplinary study of the idea of evidence in connection to the modern development of archives, museums, and prisons by setting it in a contemporary dialog with discourses on state violence, incarceration, and refugeetude. This course first established historical and theoretical connections between carcerality, Western archival record-keeping practices (e.g., scientific grids, mugshots, taxonomies, and forms of surveillance), and museological frameworks developed during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century.

Furthermore, it considered how records, artifacts, digital data, bones, sites of “memories,” oral traditions, embodied knowledge, or intergenerational trauma can become evidentiary material. Such inquiries are central to decolonial archival studies as they are critical for historically marginalized, racialized, and gendered subjects, whose claims to social justice, human rights, and cultural heritage are tied to the aftermaths of slavery, genocides, and colonialism. Our readings and discussions specifically drew upon decolonial archival studies, digital humanities, visual studies, human rights discourse, Asian American studies, Black studies, and Indigenous studies, which have continuously challenged what constitutes evidence.