SEASON 2
Ep1: A Captive of the Archives (LIVE)
For a special live launch of season 2, Clare and Yves are joined by Professor Jenny Hocking, the driving force behind the campaign to unlock the Palace Letters and expose the truth about the Dismissal. Jenny reveals how she contracted archive fever from writing biographies of powerful men, and explains why the history revealed by the letters between Sir John Kerr and the Palace is "far worse than she'd imagined". Plus she shares her dirty little archive secret - a family skeleton in the closet that shocked Gough Whitlam.
Ep2: The Day’s Residue
Clare and Yves are joined by author Helen Garner, whose latest book Yellow Notebook (Text, 2020) is an edited collection of the author’s diaries--or what you might call a self-archive. Helen explores the psychic necessity of diary keeping, the tendency of memory to smooth over our own crimes, and the truth to be found in self-research. The group discusses their shared motto and letters that elicit a sweat of fury, before reflecting on what it means to bear the blows in life and hand them out.
Ep3: Follow the Object
Yves and Clare are joined by internationally renowned space archeologist Alice Gorman, who you may also know as Dr Space Junk, author of Dr Space Junk Vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future (MIT Press, 2019). How do we catalog, access, and work in an archive suspended in the stars above our heads? Alice discusses her journey from indigenous heritage management to satellites and spacecraft, and reflects on the pitfalls of understanding the story of humankind as “from the stone age to the space age”. The group also discusses code-breaking, armor against mortality, colonialism and the unexpected delights of cable-ties.
Ep4: Shitting on Ice
Clare and Yves are joined by environmental historian Dr Alessandro (Sandro) Antonello, senior research fellow at Flinders University and author of The Greening of Antarctica: Assembling an International Environment (Oxford University Press, 2019). What’s a historian to do when their archive is disappearing before their very eyes? Sandro discusses his journey from his local parish records in year nine, to working in the ice that comprises the Antarctic. Sandro explores the relationship between humanity and science and reveals how he was caught up in a climate-denying Fox News storm. Most importantly, he reminds us never to “leave our own archive” behind in Antarctica.
Ep5: Feed Your Desire
Yves and Clare are joined by Dr Natalie Harkin, a Narungga woman, writer, poet, and author of Archival-Poetics (Vagabond Press, 2019). How do we weave our histories, our stories? Natalie talks about piecing together her family narrative through state Aboriginal records and archives in order to make sense of a fractured history and create a new space in Archival Poetics. The group considers the paradox of Natalie’s archive fever, rebuilding the archival container, the dual voices of oppression and resilience, entering the archive with rupturing intent, and weaving your way back out.
Ep6: Cutlery is Dangerous
Clare and Yves are joined by Associate Professor Michelle Arrow, historian of modern Australia at Sydney’s Macquarie University and author of The Seventies: The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia (NewSouth Publishing, 2019). Is there a power behind romanticizing the archive, or the cliche of playing archival detective? Michelle explores the rich archival basis of her work on the 1974 Royal Commission on Human Relationships, the transcripts and sensitive submissions locked away in “a bunker in the bush”. The group discusses the Commission taking stock of the impact of second-wave feminism and the ethical implications of working on the history of the not-so-long-ago seventies. Michelle also uncovers the perceived national security threat posed by a spoon.