Archival Resistance

Abstract

The popularity of Pegida and success of the Alternative for Germany has raised the question of how Germany should respond to the New Right. This article argues that reading in archives has emerged as a sociopolitical act of resistance against far-right movements, and that archival reading across time, borders, and media has turned into a strategy to defend democratic ideals. As the New Right’s rise also originates in an archival investment to control public opinion and policy, the practice of archivally reading today’s far right shows that contemporary Germany is in the midst of renegotiating its cultural archive, memory, and democratic principles.