In recent decades, our understanding of archives has evolved beyond the familiar, institutional archive carefully tended to by a small group of trained professionals. Movements such as...Show moreIn recent decades, our understanding of archives has evolved beyond the familiar, institutional archive carefully tended to by a small group of trained professionals. Movements such as postcolonialism and postcustodialism, combined with the digital turn, have allowed interest in other, less conventional forms of archiving to emerge. As such, the concept of an archival continuum (that is, the understanding of archives as evolving and participatory systems rather than fixed institutions) has been accepted by archival scholarship. This thesis investigates whether printed family memoirs that incorporate visual material from family archives can be placed along said archival continuum. Four such memoirs – The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), In Memory of Memory (2018), Heimat: A German Family Album (2018), and Letters to Camondo (2021) – have been selected as case studies by which to examine their potential archival and evidentiary value. Each memoir is a work of postmemory – following Marianne Hirsch, the authors are processing generational trauma passed down as a result of the Holocaust. I argue that it is not only the narratives that lend them archival value, but also their inclusion of archival material. As I will show, understanding published memoirs as archives supports an expanded recognition of non-professional memory work as archival. Importantly, the increased accessibility of published memoirs to a general audience versus that of conventional archives allows for greater interaction with the preserved objects, and so aids in supporting the societal memorialization of the Holocaust. By focusing on the paper editions of the books, I am able to examine the unique benefits and challenges of the printed book as a form of accessible archive and memory object.Show less
This thesis explores how literature has represented AI and evaluates the effectiveness of computers in assisting us to answer this question. This representation is studied starting from the period...Show moreThis thesis explores how literature has represented AI and evaluates the effectiveness of computers in assisting us to answer this question. This representation is studied starting from the period just before it was born as a scientific discipline in 1956, and ending in 2015. It first sets out to examine both the optimistic and the fatalistic view of AI and traces the sources of the fear of AI, and then continues to use computational methods to research the portrayal of AI in fiction. To facilitate the analysis, 39 speculative fiction books were filtered and a file was created that contained sentences on AI in the books. This enabled a study of animacy, sentiments, emotions, and synonyms of ‘helpful and ‘doom’ across the corpus. During the study, the flaws of computational analysis are highlighted, especially its lack of interpretation skills and inability to fully understand context. Consequently, this provides difficulty in drawing definitive conclusions about AI’s representation specifically. Still, despite its limitations, the study is able to conclude that most AI-themed fiction conveys a positive message to the reader.Show less
