Rogue Performances: A Review of Abigail De Kosnik’s Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom

Abstract

When I began reading Abigail De Kosnik’s Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom (MIT Press, 2016) with a professional eye, I was struck by the number of ways that it connected and resonated with my personal life and practice. Although I work at the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collection as a graduate archivist and I am receiving the benefits of a traditional archival education, I have also been involved in independent and community archives for a number of years. Particularly, I have been working to preserve the communities and materials of marginalized groups from the generalized decay of the internet. Rogue Archives then, was a self-discovery. It also became an exploration: this book review was originally livetweeted as part of a year-long experiment to engage with authors and their communities while reading their work. As a result, this journal review will conclude with some thoughts on what the experience of a performative livetweet “remix” of an academic work is like for both the reviewer and the reviewed.