Archives as Scenes of Collective Invention

“The Archive as a Scene of Invention” Rhetoric and Public Affairs

Biesecker maintains that whatever the archive is, it is, above all, “ a settled scene of our collective invention, of our collective invention of us and it” (124). I think that this is a fascinating statement. The archive, then, is a scene of “doubled invention” rather than one of “singular discovery” (124). Biesecker notes as well the crisis in historical knowledge and questioning and movement away from master narratives (Lyotard) that has been a part of her field—communication studies—and every other major field in the humanities or social sciences where “History” has been “histories.” Even with the questioning of the master narratives that have guided history, Biesecker reminds readers that there has been a turn back to the archives as a potential unmediated passage back to the past since it contains material artifacts. She cites a series of cautionary articles that remind readers of the problems entailed in a turn back to the archives—that all archives are a mere “trace” (Derrida) of the past and that when we are dealing with archives, we are dealing with the ghostly traces of the past-not the full past. The effect, then, of the first four pages of the article is to raise a whole series of questions about the indeterminacy of using archives as a point for gathering material artifacts from which to reconstruct histories.

After raising a whole series of questions about archives, Biesecker turns to the cancellation of the “Enola Gay” exhibit proposed for the National Air and Space Museum in the nineties. The Enola Gay was the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Museum’s exhibit was to omit mention of Japanese victims of the blasts, but instead was to narrate the historic flights as those that ended the war. The exhibit was poised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bombings. The controversy hinged over whether or not to include “bits of the archive”—photographic evidence of the effects of the blast on survivors on the ground. Another piece of the controversy rested on having only part of the B-29 present for the exhibit—“mutilated” as some veterans argued. Both sides of the controversy were debating how to include bits of the archive and what effects those “bits” would have on the viewing public. Would they view the Enola Gay differently? As an engine of death, which, of course, all bombers are. Or as an engine of freedom that ended the war and eliminated unnecessary suffering even as plenty of unnecessary suffering happened because of the bombings?

. But Biesecker’s point, though, is calling into question what both sides were questioning about the archival evidence causing viewers to question the U.S. decision to use the bomb against the Japanese. In contrast, the documentary film “Price for Peace” (aired 2002) narrated the costs of the blast told from the perspective of Japanese survivors as well as the story of the flight. The documentary was, interestingly, not objected to by veterans, was introduced by Tom Brokaw (author of The Greatest Generation). So the question was not really over the effects, but over what “bits” and what those bits would do, how they would used.

So Biesecker’s point is that we need to investigate the archive itself rather than ut the archival evidence. Her point is that the archive cannot authenticate, but it can authorize (130). So she argues we need rhetorical histories of the archive, “critical histories of the situated and strategic uses to which the archives have been put” (130).

I like this piece a lot, and I find I want to read more by Biesecker after reading it. I’d like to see Biesecker draw out further the implications of the Enola Gay controversy, but, of course, she can’t because this was a response essay in a special issue on archives for the journal.

I think it is interesting to think of writing critical rhetorical histories of archives and their situated and strategic uses. I think that is a important claim, especially in light of the ways in which specific archives have been used and reused to authorize our rhetorical and composition histories in the field—the Widener Library’s special collections at Harvard for instance. The use of that archive so frequently has guaranteed that many of the histories of the field are about east coast, elite colleges and universities and not about other places, spaces, and types of institutions—although many historians are now looking elsewhere.

I’d like to talk more about how archives are scenes of collective invention. What do we invent? For whom? And for what stakes? And what are the ways in which we create national identities and nationalisms from our archives?