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Mar. 7th, 2012 03:33 pmI think ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rymenhild first recommended me A Canticle for Leibowitz six or seven years ago, which just goes to show you what an awesomely timely person I am. But I'm glad I read it when I did, because man, guys, it is such an archival book, I feel like I can appreciate it ten times better now I'm in archives school.
So A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of those grim sixties sci-fi novels about the nuclear apocalypse and how mankind continually shoots itself in the foot, or, more commonly, in the head. It is super, super sixties. Everyone is white. There are 2.5 female characters, and one is a reporter who is identified (after First Reporter, Second Reporter, etc.) as Lady Reporter, and the other is a mutant tomato-seller with two heads. (The .5 is head number two.) However, it is also really good!
( Cut for length and discussion of ARCHIVAL ISSUES. )
ANYWAY. The other reason I read this book right now is for a paper that I am going to be writing this semester for one of my classes . . . and for that I need your guys' help! I want to write about the fetishization of the archive in post-apocalyptic sci-fi -- you guys know the kind of thing I mean, civilization is destroyed or reset or whatever but now we have the LOST ARCHIVE OF THE ANCIENTS, where the account of pre-apocalyptic history and technology still exist in remarkably good condition, all things considered. Or, alternately, civilization is being destroyed as we speak but IF WE SAVE THE ARCHIVE we can create hope for a better future someday. Like that!
So if you can think of any post-apocalyptic books or movies that feature ARCHIVES (or MUSEUMS or LIBRARIES), please do rec them to me! They do not actually have to be good and can in fact be actively terrible as long as they fit this criteria. Special bonus points if the archive actually features audiovisual material, although I do not think there will actually be many of these, especially not in works from the sixties when they were still learning about videotape.
rymenhild first recommended me A Canticle for Leibowitz six or seven years ago, which just goes to show you what an awesomely timely person I am. But I'm glad I read it when I did, because man, guys, it is such an archival book, I feel like I can appreciate it ten times better now I'm in archives school.So A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of those grim sixties sci-fi novels about the nuclear apocalypse and how mankind continually shoots itself in the foot, or, more commonly, in the head. It is super, super sixties. Everyone is white. There are 2.5 female characters, and one is a reporter who is identified (after First Reporter, Second Reporter, etc.) as Lady Reporter, and the other is a mutant tomato-seller with two heads. (The .5 is head number two.) However, it is also really good!
( Cut for length and discussion of ARCHIVAL ISSUES. )
ANYWAY. The other reason I read this book right now is for a paper that I am going to be writing this semester for one of my classes . . . and for that I need your guys' help! I want to write about the fetishization of the archive in post-apocalyptic sci-fi -- you guys know the kind of thing I mean, civilization is destroyed or reset or whatever but now we have the LOST ARCHIVE OF THE ANCIENTS, where the account of pre-apocalyptic history and technology still exist in remarkably good condition, all things considered. Or, alternately, civilization is being destroyed as we speak but IF WE SAVE THE ARCHIVE we can create hope for a better future someday. Like that!
So if you can think of any post-apocalyptic books or movies that feature ARCHIVES (or MUSEUMS or LIBRARIES), please do rec them to me! They do not actually have to be good and can in fact be actively terrible as long as they fit this criteria. Special bonus points if the archive actually features audiovisual material, although I do not think there will actually be many of these, especially not in works from the sixties when they were still learning about videotape.
