Do you really need to know what Freud had for breakfast?

A common topic of discussion in several of our classes this year has been privacy. To what extent should we consider the privacy of historical figures? Archival repositories have been struggling with these issues for years. Families of deceased persons whose personal papers are bequeathed to an archive may wish to control access to certain documents and thus, the data that they may contain. For example, when Sigmund Freud’s papers were deposited at the Library of Congress, many of them were sealed for decades, with restrictions imposed until, in one case, 2113. While most of these documents have now been made public, some restrictions still exist, seventy years after his death. The reason for this was the concern of his daughter, and the psychoanalyst who was in charge of the Freud Archive, that he might be exposed to unfair criticism. But of course, no-one can actually own a reputation. [1] Information is information, and should be made available to the public as much as possible – right?

In our current, digital age, the issue of privacy becomes much more pressing. At least Freud could control what records he left behind, even if he cannot control who sees them from beyond the grave. The documents he left behind are of a conventional nature – things like letters and diaries that he actively and knowingly created. But we now live in a world where it is possible that we are leaving behind a trail of evidence of which we are not even aware.

In a previous post, I discussed spimes and possibility of a future in which all objects are connected in a sort of wireless network, so that their own personal history is recorded. The issue of privacy comes in when the objects you buy in the store are imbedded with chips that allow them to be tracked once you take them home. So it’s not just about the record you leave through email and telephone conversations, or through your diary and handwritten letters like Freud. Now it’s about what you buy and what you do with your possessions. The technology to imbed objects with small microchips and monitor its location already exists. It’s called radio frequency identification – or RFiD – and has been around since the Second World War. But in the past few years its potential implications have become more apparent and have been cause for concern, even alarm, among some. In a world that is increasingly monitored, where we are ever more frequently under the scrutiny of surveillance cameras, doesn’t this seem like the next logical step?

This technology could certainly have interesting implications for studying history, as I intimated in my previous post. But the already complicated issue of privacy just gets even stickier. Just as Freud’s daughter didn’t want the less flattering elements of her father’s records to come to light, who would really be ok with the world knowing their every purchase after they died? Aren’t some things, after all, better left unknown?

1. Joseph L. Sax, “Not so Public: Access to Collections”, RBM:A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage vol. 1 no.2, 101-105

Archiving Lauren Conrad

I spent the weekend writing an essay on issues relating to archiving motion pictures. When I sat down to write a blog about some of the things I’ve been thinking about, I thought it would be about questions of art and history, or at least about something sexy like spontaneously combustible film. But when it came right down to it, I kept coming back to The Hills.


I’m going to put it out there and admit it: sometimes I watch The Hills (and I know for a fact I’m not the only one in Public History who does). And The Hills, like it or not, is definitely becoming somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. (If you are oblivious to this, I would recommend that you stay in the dark. It’s probably not worth your time – but in a nutshell, it’s a semi-scripted/semi-reality show about a bunch of beautiful young people living in LA).


Where does archiving come in? Although we are in the DVD age, and millions of copies of season 1 are already scattered around the world, the theoretical question is still interesting to me: what would – or should – a motion picture archivist do with the original reels of The Hills?
Motion picture archivists select documents for archiving based on one of three things:
a. Aesthetic or artistic value (I’m pretty sure no-one would argue it’s a work of art)
b. Historical or sociological insight (again, probably wouldn’t make the cut)
c. Emotional impact/intrinsic value. And here’s the kicker. Many millions of people tune in to watch the latest exploits of Heidi and Lauren each week. No matter how vapid and pointless the show may be, it’s struck a chord. And that’s worth a thought.


There’s a whole other question here. When we look at a motion picture we always have to consider whether it is a genuine event or a re-creation of one. Obviously most feature film is fiction. Documentary is, in theory anyway, a more honest representation of real life, although the presence of the camera means that it will never be entirely accurate. But The Hills takes fiction and reality and blends them together so you have no idea what’s real and what’s not.


So here we have a show that has zero artistic value or potential for historical insight. We don’t even know how much of what happens on the show is genuine and how much is staged. And millions of cheap DVDs are floating around the planet. But it's also a hugely popular show that's struck an emotional chord and has entered the cultural lexicon, at least for the moment. So do we keep The Hills? I guess the real question is, what would Lauren do?