Combining literary, cultural, and political history, and based on extensive archival research, Archives of Authority argues that cultural politics - specifically America's often covert patronage of the arts - played a highly important role in the transfer of imperial authority from Britain to the USA during a critical period after WWII.
Processing the Past explores the dramatic changes taking place in historical understanding and archival management, and hence the relations between historians and archivists. Written by an archivist and a historian, it shows how these changes have been brought on by new historical thinking, new conceptions of archives, changing notions of historical authority, modifications in archival practices, and new information technologies. The book takes an "archival turn" by situating archives as subjects rather than places of study, and examining the increasingly problematic relationships between historical and archival work. By showing how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians and archivists in Europe and North America came to occupy the same conceptual and methodological space, the book sets the background to these changes. In the past, authoritative history was based on authoritative archives and mutual understandings of scientific research. These connections changed as historians began to ask questions not easily answered by traditional documentation, and archivists began to confront an unmanageable increase in the amount of material they processed and the challenges of new electronic technologies. The authors contend that historians and archivists have divided into two entirely separate professions with distinct conceptual frameworks, training, and purposes, as well as different understandings of the authorities that govern their work. Processing the Past moves toward bridging this divide by speaking in one voice to these very different audiences. Blouin and Rosenberg conclude by raising the worrisome question of what future historical archives might be like if historical scholars and archivists no longer understand each other, and indeed, whether their now different notions of what is archival and historical will ever again be joined.
Combining literary, cultural, and political history, and based on extensive archival research, including previously unseen FBI and CIA documents, Archives of Authority argues that cultural politics--specifically America's often covert patronage of the arts--played a highly important role in the transfer of imperial authority from Britain to the United States during a critical period after World War II. Andrew Rubin argues that this transfer reshaped the postwar literary space and he shows how, during this time, new and efficient modes of cultural transmission, replication, and travel--such as radio and rapidly and globally circulated journals--completely transformed the position occupied by the postwar writer and the role of world literature. Rubin demonstrates that the nearly instantaneous translation of texts by George Orwell, Thomas Mann, W. H. Auden, Richard Wright, Mary McCarthy, and Albert Camus, among others, into interrelated journals that were sponsored by organizations such as the CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom and circulated around the world effectively reshaped writers, critics, and intellectuals into easily recognizable, transnational figures. Their work formed a new canon of world literature that was celebrated in the United States and supposedly represented the best of contemporary thought, while less politically attractive authors were ignored or even demonized. This championing and demonizing of writers occurred in the name of anti-Communism--the new, transatlantic "civilizing mission" through which postwar cultural and literary authority emerged.
Despite the importance of archives to the profession of history, there is very little written about actual encounters with them—about the effect that the researcher’s race, gender, or class may have on her experience within them or about the impact that archival surveillance, architecture, or bureaucracy might have on the histories that are ultimately written. This provocative collection initiates a vital conversation about how archives around the world are constructed, policed, manipulated, and experienced. It challenges the claims to objectivity associated with the traditional archive by telling stories that illuminate its power to shape the narratives that are “found” there. Archive Stories brings together ethnographies of the archival world, most of which are written by historians. Some contributors recount their own experiences. One offers a moving reflection on how the relative wealth and prestige of Western researchers can gain them entry to collections such as Uzbekistan’s newly formed Central State Archive, which severely limits the access of Uzbek researchers. Others explore the genealogies of specific archives, from one of the most influential archival institutions in the modern West, the Archives nationales in Paris, to the significant archives of the Bakunin family in Russia, which were saved largely through the efforts of one family member. Still others explore the impact of current events on the analysis of particular archives. A contributor tells of researching the 1976 Soweto riots in the politically charged atmosphere of the early 1990s, just as apartheid in South Africa was coming to an end. A number of the essays question what counts as an archive—and what counts as history—as they consider oral histories, cyberspace, fiction, and plans for streets and buildings that were never built, for histories that never materialized. Contributors. Tony Ballantyne, Marilyn Booth, Antoinette Burton, Ann Curthoys, Peter Fritzsche, Durba Ghosh, Laura Mayhall, Jennifer S. Milligan, Kathryn J. Oberdeck, Adele Perry, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, John Randolph, Craig Robertson, Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, Jeff Sahadeo, Reneé Sentilles
Explores and develops a framework for the ethical practice of name authority control, through theoretical and practice-based essays, stories, content analyses, and other methods
International authority control will soon be a reality. Examine the projects that are moving the information science professions in that direction today! In Authority Control in Organizing and Accessing Information: Definition and International Experience, international experts examine the state of the art and explore new theoretical perspectives. This essential resource, which has its origins in the International Conference on Authority Control (Italy, 2003), addresses standards, exchange formats, and metadata—with sections on authority control for names, works, and subjects. Twenty fascinating case examples show how authority control is practiced at institutions in various nations around the world. Authority Control in Organizing and Accessing Information provides an essential definition of authority control and then begins its sharply focused examinations of essential aspects of authority control with a section entitled “State of the Art and New Theoretical Perspectives.” Here you’ll find chapters focusing on: the current state of the art—with suggestions for future developments the importance (and current lack) of teaching authority control as part of a library/information science curriculum the guidelines and methodology used in the creation of Italy’s SBN Authority File Next, “Standards, Exchange Formats, and Metadata” covers: Italy’s Bibliografia Nazionale Italiana UNIMARC database, which was created using authority control principles the past and present activities of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and an examination of IFLA’s Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) metadata standards as a means for accomplishing authority control in digital libraries traditional international library standards for bibliographic and authority control the evolution and current status of authority control tools for art and material culture information the UNIMARC authorities format—what it is and how to work with it “Authority Control for Names and Works” brings you useful, current information on: changes and new features in the new edition of the International Standard Archival Authority Record (Corporate Bodies, Persons, Families) Encoded Archival Context (EAC)—and its role in enhancing access to and understanding of records, and how it enables repositories to share creator description the LEAF model for collection, harvesting, linking, and providing access to existing local/national name authority data national bibliographic control in China, Japan, and Korea, plus suggestions for future cooperation between bibliographic agencies in East Asia authority control of printers, publishers, and booksellers how to create up-to-date corporate name authority records authority control (and the lack of it) for works “Authority Control for Subjects” updates you on: subject gateways—with a look at the differences between the Program for Cooperative Cataloging’s SACO program and browsable online subject gateways MACS—a virtual authority file that crosses language barriers to provide multilingual access OCLC’s FAST project, which strives to retain the rich vocabulary of LCSH while making the schema easier to understand, control, apply, and use the efforts of Italy’s National Central Library toward semantic authority control the interrelationship of subject indexing languages and authority control—with a look at the “semantics vs. syntax” issue how subject indexing is done in Italy’s Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale “Authority Control Experiences and Proje
From Ancient Greek philosophy to the French Revolution to the modern welfare state, in Authority and the Individual Bertrand Russell tackles the perennial questions about the balance between authority and human freedom. With characteristic clarity and deep understanding, he explores the formation and purpose of society, education, moral evolution and social, economical and intellectual progress. First of the famous BBC Reith lectures, this wonderful collection delivers Russell at his intellectual best.
Authority is one of the key issues in political studies, for the question of by what right one person or several persons govern others is at the very root of political activity. In selecting key readings for this volume Joseph Raz concerns himself primarily with the moral aspect of political authority, choosing pieces that examine its justification, determine who is subject to it and who is entitled to hold it, and whether there are any general moral limits to it. The readings—by such modern political thinkeres as Robert Paul Wolff, H. L. A. Hart, G. E. M. Anscombe, and Ronald Dworkin—examine the basic moral issues and provide an essential introduction to the debate about the nature of authority for all students of political theory.