Department of English

The goal of this internship is to provide training in the history, theory, methods, and practice of professional archiving and curatorial work in an academic setting. Interns will leave with demonstrable skills, a portfolio of work, and access to a network of scholars and professionals in the field.

The internship will open with a series of sessions supported by assigned readings on 1) the history of academic archives by focusing on three case studies (Kislak Center, University of Pennsylvania; Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; Foreign and Commonwealth Office Migrated Archives, The National Archive, London), 2) the processing of collections and library work; and 3) applications of professional archival work in academic scholarship, Material Texts and DH, the Rare Book trade and private collecting. Interns will spend five weeks processing a Kislak collection, producing

a finding aid, and writing a blog post each on a selected item. After a training session with Kislak curators, interns will spend the final three weeks of the semester developing a curatorial proposal for a Kislak-sponsored exhibition of material drawn from the processed collection. Enrollment is by instructor permission only. Please write to Meghan Hall (hallme@sas.upenn.edu) to be added to the waitlist.