Jacques Derrida meets Nelson Mandela: archival ethics at the endgame

Verne Harris offers a reflection on legacy and the archive through three intersecting enquiries, on: the South African tradition of ??archives for justice??, deconstruction??s insistence that the work of archives is justice; and the legacies of Nelson Mandela and Jacques Derrida. He makes a case for an open-ended making and re-making of legacy and for a more radically transformative agenda in the work of archives in South Africa.     

‘It gets narrower’: creative strategies for re-broadening queer peer education

Using collaborative performance ethnography in community- and school-based settings, sex education has the potential to challenge at-risk narratives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) youth. This paper problematises the youth-led drama project Epic Queer to test the ‘queer’ potential of youth-driven initiatives at the school and community level, and to reject the singularity of victimised and ‘at-risk’ narratives so pervasive in sex education internationally about queer youth. By drawing on the It Gets Better Project as an example of widespread but narrowing social media texts encouraging normativity, deferred pleasure and a happiness narrative, this paper argues for the potential of performance-based arts engagement for re-expanding queer youth subjectivities.     

Proclaiming Library Worth in a Program Prioritization Process at a Mid-Sized Public University

Abstract

In an economic climate when colleges can no longer presume that legislators see institutions of higher learning as tacit public goods, institutions around the country are facing budget cuts. This article presents a case study of the experience of a mid-sized public state university and its Library in a budget crisis undergoing a university-wide program prioritization process. The authors review the process of writing three reports on the Library’s value, along with the approach to engaging staff in the process including a retreat. This article raises questions about what every library should consider assessing and provide tools for libraries navigating similar terrain.