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Material Texts: Craig Robertson (Northeastern University), “Storage: How Paper Does the Work of Paperwork”

  • Monday, October 7, 2024 - 5:15pm to 7:15pm

Class of 1978 Pavilion, in the Kislak Center for Special Collections on the 6th floor of the University of Pennsylvania's Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center


We are excited to welcome Craig Robertson (Northeastern University) for a talk titled: “Storage: How Paper Does the Work of Paperwork.”

Professor Robertson writes:

"In this talk, I draw on over a decade of research to think about the materiality of paper through the problem of storage. To store is to place something in anticipation of future use; storage technologies claim and shape space in particular ways. I focus on the material properties of two key technologies used to organize the storage of documents in twentieth-century offices: the filing cabinet and the pile. This analysis locates these storage technologies in social relations of power (notably gender, capitalism, and efficiency) which provide the foundation for my argument that storage practices and storage technologies are not neutral."

Craig Robertson is Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. His research uses the issues and concerns of media history and media theory to explore the relationship between information and paper. He is the author of The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (2021) and The Passport in America: The History of a Document (2010). He has edited two volumes on media history and published in journals across a range of disciplines.