Ränder des Archivs
Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf das Entstehen und Vergehen von Archiven
[Margins of the Archives Cultural Studies Perspectives on the Emergence and the Disappearance of Archives]

Archives are the laboratories of the humanities and cultural studies. Not only are they information storages, but also sites of knowledge production and its cultural organization. Here, material objects with their very own specific mode of existence—records, images, artefacts—experience alternating attributions of meaning while also being involved in practices of truth. The current dynamization and pluralization of the archive concept highlights the margins of the archives: the place where the inclusion into or the departure from the archive is determined, where objects are reorganized or reformatted, where private property becomes cultural heritage, and where archived materials are at risk of becoming illegible and being lost to gradual decay. The contributions in this volume explore the epistemic importance of these margins for the theory and practice of contemporary cultural studies.