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Podcast: New Books in Literary Studies
Episode: Laura Helton, "Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Description: During the first half of the twentieth century, a group of collectors and creators dedicated themselves to documenting the history of African American life. At a time when dominant institutions cast doubt on the value or even the idea of Black history, these bibliophiles, scrapbookers, and librarians created an enduring set of African diasporic archives. In building these institutions and amassing abundant archival material, they also reshaped Black public culture, animating inquiry into the nature and meaning of Black history.In Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History (Columbia UP, 2024), Laura E. He...