Introduction: Reading Silence in the Long Nineteenth-Century Women’s Life Writing Archive

Abstract

This introduction reflects on the nineteenth-century women’s life writing archive as a concept as well as a space. Is the long nineteenth-century women’s life writing archive a unique entity that stands apart from the wider archive? If so, how do we interpret its borders? How can we read silences, omissions, and tactical interventions within an ethical framework? What possibilities and limitations arise from the growing mediation of technology between researchers and the archive? This introduction suggests that archives, which are often identified as sites of displacement for women’s voices, can also be read as sites of agency. It proposes that creative and interdisciplinary approaches for reading the origins, uses, and consequences of silences in the nineteenth-century women’s life writing archive are essential for understanding the ways that the past has been mediated and inscribed.