Students in HIST 399: Narrating the Archives explored archives as both sites of historical research and objects of study. Working with physical and digital collections from around the world—as well as materials in the Oberlin College Archives and the Allen Memorial Art Museum—students considered how archives are created, whose experiences they preserve, what they leave out, and how historians can interpret their silences and limitations.
For their final projects, students conducted original archival research and some chose to transform their findings into digital and public-facing forms of historical scholarship. The projects below demonstrate how archival research can be combined with creative digital methods to tell historical stories, make collections accessible to wider audiences, and encourage new ways of thinking about the relationship between archives and the histories we write.
Sarah Tibbits – Women in Reliquaries
