UM / User's Manual to the Humanities

The Center for the Humanities welcomes graduate students for our series: UM / User's Manual to the Humanities! Join us to learn from other graduate students and from faculty about strategies for navigating graduate school while preparing for your career!

Workshop #2: “Critical Approaches to Archival Research in the Humanities” with our UM Libraries Colleagues:

• Amanda Moreno-Schroeder, Librarian Associate Professor, Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair and Director, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries
• Béatrice Colastin Skokan, Librarian Professor, Head of Manuscripts & Archives Management and Curator of Caribbean Collections, University of Miami Libraries

Archives are foundational to humanities research, shaping the questions we ask and the sources we use. At the same time, archives reflect the historical moments, institutional priorities, and descriptive practices that brought materials together in the first place. This workshop invites graduate students to think intentionally about archives as constructed spaces shaped by power, language, and institutional choices. Through engagement with primary sources, we’ll explore how archival silences are produced, how description and metadata affect what can be found (and what remains hidden), and how researchers can read “against the grain” to surface marginalized histories. 

No prior archival experience is required. The focus is on strengthening your critical toolkit for working with primary sources in coursework, dissertations, and future research. 

Amanda T. Moreno-Schroeder, MSLIS/MA, is the Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair and Director of the Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC) at the University of Miami Libraries. She holds a dual MA/MSLIS degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Library and Information Science from New York University (NYU) and Long Island University, supported by a NYU MacCracken Fellowship, American Library Association Spectrum scholarship, and a fellowship from the Association of Research Libraries' Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce. Amanda participated in the Smithsonian’s Latino Museum Studies Program in 2015 and was a Rare Book School-Andrew W. Mellon Fellow for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage from 2020 to 2024.

Béatrice Colastin Skokan joined the faculty in 2009 and serves as the Head of Manuscripts and Archives Management. She is responsible for the management and assessment of manuscripts and archival processing for collections in all formats across the distinctive collections within the UM Libraries. As Curator of Caribbean Collections, she leads the coordination of collection development, exhibits, research, and outreach pertaining to the UM Libraries Caribbean collections. Her outreach activities include instruction in the use of Distinctive Collections primary source materials as well as the organizations of in house and online exhibits.