Five Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Thursdays, January 7 - February 4, 2026
8:00 - 9:00pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $165 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Libraries and archives are liminal spaces between what once was and what might be remembered. They are spaces where the past is preserved, stored, and awaits new readers and researchers to activate its presence via new relationships with contemporary eyes. Contrasting with the view of these institutions as mere repositories or sepulchral catalogs of dead information, GLAM institutions (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) rely on the interplay between object and observer to give their materials a renewed existence.
Inspired by our collection of academic essays Libraries, Archives and Collective Grief (Bristol UP, 2026), this class will explore the afterlives of library and archival collections and the role GLAM institutions play in grieving processes and memorial practices. We will examine these themes through international case studies, theoretical discussions, and practical guidance, focusing on how these third places activate moments of grief through preservation, documentation, and knowledge dissemination. Drawing on cultural, personal, and literary perspectives, we will examine grief across temporalities as well as the ephemerality of digital and physical materialities. Together, we will explore how archival practice, critical librarianship, and the digital humanities can transform the ways communities preserve memory, process loss, and find meaning in grief.
Robert Spinelli is Archivist for Special Collections at Middle Tennessee State University and Adjunct Professor at American Baptist College. Part of his research focuses on conspiracy theories, misinformation, and the information society. The other centers on the interdisciplinary field of death studies, stigmatized knowledge and religion.
Kaylee Alexander is a Research Data Librarian at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library. She received her PhD from Duke University, specializing in nineteenth-century visual culture and French cemetery history. Dr. Alexander’s scholarship is embedded in transdisciplinary practices at the intersection of material culture and information science.
Images:
Five Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Thursdays, January 7 - February 4, 2026
8:00 - 9:00pm ET (NYC Time)
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $165 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Libraries and archives are liminal spaces between what once was and what might be remembered. They are spaces where the past is preserved, stored, and awaits new readers and researchers to activate its presence via new relationships with contemporary eyes. Contrasting with the view of these institutions as mere repositories or sepulchral catalogs of dead information, GLAM institutions (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) rely on the interplay between object and observer to give their materials a renewed existence.
Inspired by our collection of academic essays Libraries, Archives and Collective Grief (Bristol UP, 2026), this class will explore the afterlives of library and archival collections and the role GLAM institutions play in grieving processes and memorial practices. We will examine these themes through international case studies, theoretical discussions, and practical guidance, focusing on how these third places activate moments of grief through preservation, documentation, and knowledge dissemination. Drawing on cultural, personal, and literary perspectives, we will examine grief across temporalities as well as the ephemerality of digital and physical materialities. Together, we will explore how archival practice, critical librarianship, and the digital humanities can transform the ways communities preserve memory, process loss, and find meaning in grief.
Robert Spinelli is Archivist for Special Collections at Middle Tennessee State University and Adjunct Professor at American Baptist College. Part of his research focuses on conspiracy theories, misinformation, and the information society. The other centers on the interdisciplinary field of death studies, stigmatized knowledge and religion.
Kaylee Alexander is a Research Data Librarian at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library. She received her PhD from Duke University, specializing in nineteenth-century visual culture and French cemetery history. Dr. Alexander’s scholarship is embedded in transdisciplinary practices at the intersection of material culture and information science.
Images:
