Old News is New News

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When my groupmates and I met up for our appointment at the Special Collections and Archives reading room, I had no idea what to expect really. I knew that we would be spending time digging through old documents, letters, lists, etc, but I didn't expect for my perception of Kenyon to change so drastically. I found my discussion with my groupmates about the things we found from old Collegian articles to be fascinating, as we are tasked with curating what is "important" with "Kenyon in the World" in these past 100 years. We spent most of our time looking at old lists and articles about how wars impacted Kenyon. Even though I do not know any of these people from 20th-century Kenyon, the articles and letters that I did read resonated strongly because they were perspectives from Kenyon students. One of the most impactful materials I came across was the edition of the Kenyon Collegian from May 19, 1970, which talked about Kenyon's response to the Kent State shootings. This issue of the Collegian was impactful for both me and my groupmates because it talked about a significant event from U.S. history but through the lenses of Kenyon students.


In class during this past week, we were asked to think about whether or not traditions are good. I reflected on many aspects and the many traditions that I have been a part of, and if it was truly beneficial in the end. One of the readings we read and discussed was Eric Hobsbawm's "Introduction: Inventing Tradition." In "Inventing Tradition," Hobsbawm defines clearly what an "invented tradition" is. Hobsbawm argues that "invented traditions" are a certain set of practices that inculcate specific values of norms of behavior by repetition which automatically implies continuity with the past (Hobsbawm 2011: 272). Furthermore, Hobsbawm distinguishes how invented traditions are different than customs because a custom "shows [a] combination of flexibility" (Hobsbawm 2011: 272), meaning that customs change but invented traditions do not. Because invented traditions are not dynamic or fluid, they can generate a strong sense of community, linking the group members of the present with those from the past.


After learning about Hobsbawm's arguments about invented traditions, this made me reflect on why I felt so moved by the old Collegian articles and connected with those who wrote in it. From Kenyon's Digital Archives, we are able to access Collegian issues that date back all the way before 1900. Many things at Kenyon have changed, but the Collegian could be thought of as an "invented tradition" in terms of Hobsbawm's thinking. Yes, the way that the Collegian distributes itself has changed and maybe some of the specific sections, but since the 19th century, it continues to be a way for the Gambier (and outside of Gambier) community to receive news about Kenyon, from Kenyon students. This "continuity with the past" that Hobsbawm has talked about it present with my example of the Collegian. It is interesting to see how tools that do generate or evoke a strong collective memory play a role in how we deem "what is important" when curating these cases. Even though all of Kenyon's history is important, how are we able to filter out our own feelings or biases when deciding what is important? Who knew that headlines from the 1970s could be more eye-catching than the hundreds of flashy infographics or clickbait news that is spewed at me almost daily on social media? My reflection now is on the "why" of those things. 



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