F164.
Artists & Archivists: Two-Year College Students Transform a Philadelphia Archive
Friday, March 25, 2022
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm
In 2019, the Presbyterian Historical Society opened 500 years of archival materials to creative writing students from Community College of Philadelphia. As a result, the archive experienced an influx of energy, and student work took surprising, subversive, and moving directions. Archivists, instructors, and students share how classroom activities and a student exhibit helped demystify archival materials and connect a 170-year-old cultural institution to today’s movements for social justice.
Participants
Fred Tangeman is director of communications at the Presbyterian Historical Society and project leader of Building Knowledge and Breaking Barriers, an archives-based learning project with Community College of Philadelphia. Fred has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa.
Kate Sanchez is an assistant professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia where she teaches courses in composition, literature, creative writing, and First-Year Experience. She partners with the Presbyterian Historical Society to engage her creative writing students with their archive materials.
Jennifer Barr is an outreach and reference archivist at the Presbyterian Historical Society. She works with arts and history instructors to select and contextualize primary sources and supports students as they work with those sources. Jennifer has an MSI from the University of Michigan.
Lumen Lugo-Roman is a student at Community College of Philadelphia whose exhibited poetry at the Presbyterian Historical Society relates to archival materials about women’s empowerment and LGBTQIA+ rights.
Simone Zelitch teaches at Community College of Philadelphia, where she established their creative writing program English degree and participated in their partnership with the Presbyterian Historical Society archives. She has published five novels, most recently Judenstaat.
