Content Warning: Engaging Trauma and Controversy in Research Collections

FAIN: EH-293766-23

Trustees of Indiana University (Bloomington, IN 47405-7000)
Suzanne Godby Ingalsbe (Project Director: February 2023 to present)
Maria Hamilton Abegunde (Co Project Director: February 2023 to present)

A three-week residential institute for 25 higher education faculty about trauma-informed approaches to research in archival collections.

Humanities scholarship and teaching rely on collections, primary and secondary sources both human and material, to explore and understand history and human relationships with other ecologies. Without the archives and the material record, we would know much less about key historical events and how they have shaped human and non-human interactions. This NEH Institute brings the humanities tools of observation, reflection, critique, and communication to bear on museum and archival collections, as well as on the practices integral to gathering, creating, storing, and disseminating knowledge through these institutions. By the end of the institute, participants will develop plans for working through and past trauma to engage collections as places and resources for learning, healing, and growth instead of sites for potentially painful or even debilitating encounters.