Monday, September 25, 2017
12:10 pm-12:50 pm
How do artists, scholars, and writers approach archival practice? This talk will explore both the theoretical and practical dimensions of archival work, with a particular look at narratives about Chicago's cultural history. Drawing on her recent book Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis (Yale, 2017), Liesl Olson will discuss the allure of the archive as a potential source of untold stories. Illuminating the importance of Chicago's early twentieth-century editors, bookstore owners, gallery owners, and cultural arbiters-many of whom were women-Olson will call attention to what the archive does-and does not-disclose.
Liesl Olson is Director of Chicago Studies at the Newberry Library. She is the author of Modernism and the Ordinary (Oxford University Press 2009) and the forthcoming Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis (Yale 2017).
