[Commlist] Call for Proposals: Hip-Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of Knowledge Production

Call for Proposals: Hip-Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of 
Knowledge Production

Edited by Mark V. Campbell (Ryerson University)
Murray Forman (Northeastern University)

As editors of this book, we seek contributions that critically address 
hip-hop archives
(both digital and physical) and the processes of archivization, 
encompassing theoretical
and analytical perspectives and exploring globally dispersed cases. We 
particularly
welcome contributions from individuals who are in some way actively 
engaged in the
development or operation of hip-hop archives in any medium and at any 
stage or scale,
whether independent collections or institutionally supported 
enterprises. We also value
the various ways in which hip-hop culture is engaged from historical and 
material
perspectives, allowing for examination of the archive as a historical 
apparatus as well as a
contemporary physical assemblage of artifacts.

This book focuses on the culture and politics involved in building, 
maintaining, and
researching hip-hop archives. It addresses practical aspects, including 
methods of
accumulation, curation, preservation, and digitization and critically 
analyzes institutional
power, community engagement, urban economics, public access, and the 
ideological
implications associated with hip-hop culture’s enduring tensions with 
dominant social
values.

Roughly forty-five years since hip-hop culture emerged, a broad and 
sizeable array of
material artifacts, recorded materials, and various cultural ephemera 
has accumulated.
Pioneering artists, life-long fans, industry mavens, and keen collectors 
have amassed
collections of artifacts that are essential to the definition of 
localized hip-hop scenes,
providing crucial insights onto the people, places, aesthetics and other 
often-obscure
details that trace the arc of cultural development. Included in these 
collections are
photographs, event flyers and posters, recordings (in multiple 
configurations), video
materials, magazines, clothing and other stylistic signifiers, personal 
papers and
notebooks, and oral history recordings. These materials, and their 
archival existence,
have thus far received only scant scholarly attention within a sustained 
critical framework
and, thus, this book seeks to enhance an understanding of hip-hip 
culture more widely by
expanding our knowledge and understanding about the emergent role of 
hip-hop archives.
Archives are generally a response to a need to actively preserve a 
culture, allowing for
present and future citizens to access and interpret the evolution of a 
people’s innovations
and endeavors. Archives encompass facets of heritage and legacy, merging 
the temporal
past with present and future implications. They are repositories of 
cultural histories and,
as such, they are also sites for the amplification of narratives and 
other representational
forms that, in their diversity, disseminate symbolic values and 
meanings. At the current
cultural moment, digitization also amplifies the ubiquity and importance 
of archival
processes in relation to hip-hop’s ongoing vitality. The archiving of 
hip-hop culture
consequently offers a powerful initiative that simultaneously celebrates 
the achievements
of cultural forebears while critically engaging with ideologies, social 
and political issues,
economic forces, and artistic creativity, repositioning the 
once-marginal practices and
attitude associated with hip-hop at the center of larger debates about 
the character of our
urban environments and cultural priorities.

The book aims to present rigorous scholarly research that critically and 
theoretically
examines hip-hop’s archival turn, including interrogating the 
distinctions between small,
independent archives and collections as well as those that feature 
larger holdings and that
are institutionally located in public and university libraries or 
national spaces such as the
U.S. Smithsonian Institute. Further emphasis will be placed on the ways 
in which hip-hop
archives mobilize community involvement, facilitating engagements that 
take various
shapes and have diverse implications for how local hip-hop scenes 
envision themselves
and their relationship to the wider hip-hop culture.

Of this latter point, the book strongly advocates for a global 
perspective. We invite
chapters with a pronounced international foundation, seeking to draw on 
the insights and
archival practices enacted in multiple national contexts, exploring the 
constraining and
enabling factors that arise in dispersed locales.

Deadline for Proposals: 1 April 2019
Proposals should be 250 words

Proposals can be submitted in word.doc format to:
Mark V. Campbell: (mvcampbell /at/ ryerson.car) <mailto:(mvcampbell /at/ ryerson.car)>
Murray Forman: (m.forman /at/ northeastern.edu) <mailto:(m.forman /at/ northeastern.edu)>


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