Below is an op-ed I submitted to the Harvard Crimson, which intended to publish it but later walked back that decision. For transparency’s sake, I have published the entirety of my email exchange with their editors here. It should be noted that the newspaper, which is run by students and…

On February 9, 2019, I gave the keynote address at the annual Scholar and Feminist Conference organized by the esteemed Barnard Center for Research on Women. This year’s conference theme was entitled, “The Politics and Ethics of the Archive.” …

Next month I will travel to New Orleans, LA, for the symposium Architecting Sustainable Futures: Exploring Funding Models in Community-Based Archives. In advance of that, symposium organizers invited me to write this short commentary for the first session, which is entitled “The Community is the Archive.” …

Below is the text of a talk I delivered on October 18, 2017, in Philadelphia, PA, at the event Monument Lab Live #2: Hidden Histories and Missing Documents. A longer version of the central story that I narrate can be found in an academic article I published here. …

Below is the text of a talk I delivered on a panel that formed part of the 75th Anniversary Symposium for Harvard University’s Houghton Library. The panel’s title was “Taking Care.” Fuck Harvard. That might offend some of you in this room today, but I have my reasons for saying…

My last day as a professional archivist will come just three days before the 4-year anniversary when I interviewed for my job as Princeton’s first-ever digital archivist on July 24, 2013. I remember that interview quite vividly for two reasons. First, Princeton sent a driver to pick me up from…

June 21, 2017 Dear Dave, Robin, and Lisa, I hope this message reaches you well. My name is Jarrett and I’m part of the Advisory Group to the StoryCorps Justice Project. When Tanya, whom I admire and respect deeply, asked me to join the group last year, I said “yes”…

I am writing this post against my better judgment but I am writing it anyway because it needs writing. It also needs reading, and I hope that its intended audience reads it closely. The intended audience includes anyone, anywhere who is planning a Thing (a conference, symposium, panel, or class…

I delivered this talk on a panel at the 2017 meeting of the British Columbia Library Association, which took place on April 20, 2017, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Tara Robertson and Michael Wynne delivered talks on the panel as well. Theirs were better than mine. Canada, I’m sorry. And, you’re…