In recognition of the 50th anniversary of Archivaria and the 30th anniversary of the English-language publication of Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, this special issue looks toward the legacy of critical theory in discussions on archives, particularly within the pages of Archivaria, and its impact on the far-ranging and interdisciplinary landscape of contemporary archival thought. Born of the union between archival practice and what was alternately called poststructuralism or postmodernism, early forays into the critical interrogation of archival praxis were rooted in the effort to reclaim the theorization of “the archive” from the proverbial clutches of philosophers, postmodernists, and others not steeped in the quotidian struggles of stewarding cultural heritage and memory. This special issue, in turn, features a wide variety of contemporary writings that are in conversation with this legacy of critical theory in archives and in Archivaria but that, moreover, engage with the use of critical theories to understand archives, the people who work with them, and their impact on the world. Even with the democratization of archival theorization and the increased proliferation of “archives” as a phenomenon across a number of disciplines, there continues to be a need for archivists themselves to interrogate the tools of their trade and to lead this critical conversation alongside scholars from other disciplines who maintain a profound engagement with both the materiality and theoretical implications of archives. Divided into four thematic sections, this 50th-anniversary issue plots a trajectory from reflections on the impacts of poststructuralism, Derrida, and Foucault on archival thinking and practice to articles that chart a path forward and demonstrate the continued role of critical theory in the present archival moment. In the first section, titled “Glancing Backwards,” we feature three articles, by Brien Brothman, Steven Maynard, and Raymond O. Frogner, respectively, that explore the influence of critical theory on archival thinking in the past and present; the material influence of archival research on Foucault’s work; and the knowledge gap evident in the Enlightenment thought, with its direct throughline to poststructuralism, that excluded Indigenous epistemologies. In the second section, “Facing the Horizon,” we turn to Anastasia Armendariz and Kate Orazem, as well as Josh Wilson, to confront the contested legacies of Derrida and critical theory in archival repositories and the challenges involved in attempting to apply theoretical musings to daily practice. The issue’s third section, “Looking Within,” focuses on the reflective confluence of feminist and queer theories with archival theory and on how these theories now engage and extend thinking on archives and the legacies of poststructuralism. Both Jennifer Douglas and Ann Cvetkovich bring the reader along on more personal journeys, detailing how they have wrestled with archival theory outside its disciplinary boundaries and how they are infusing archival theory and practice with lived and theoretical perspectives that further enrich how we think about archives and how individuals engage them. In the fourth and final section, “Shifting Directions,” Patrick Keilty and Yingying Han and Travis Wagner map future trajectories for the engagement of archival theory with critical theories, proposing its intersections with cinema studies and queer and Asian studies. Exploring questions of ephemerality, decay, and the need to posit archives as sites of disidentification that avoid reinforcing essentialist identities, these two final articles remind the reader of the ongoing expansiveness and multivalent disciplinarity of archival theory and practice in the pages of Archivaria. Suffice it to say, the legacies of critical theory in archives have traversed multiple, and at times contested, landscapes of praxis, which have contributed to creative tensions and to the pushing of boundaries on both sides of the theoretical equation. Initially …
