Jacques Derrida’s “Archive Fever” (1995) is a theoretical text that deeply explores the nature of archives, their authority, and their limits—particularly drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis and deconstruction.
✅ Why the Correct Answer is 1. Archival Method
1. Theoretical Context: Derrida’s Interest in Archives
Derrida is concerned with how archives are formed, what counts as an archive, and who controls it.
He critiques the traditional concept of the archive as a stable repository of knowledge. For him, archives are shaped by power, institutional authority, and technology.
He draws from Freud’s theory of repression, suggesting that the archive is not just about storage, but about memory, trauma, and suppression.
🧠 Key Idea: Archives are never neutral. They are constructed, often to serve institutional or ideological goals. Derrida coins the term "archive fever" to refer to the human obsession with collecting and preserving, often driven by anxiety about forgetting.
2. Archive Fever and Methodology
Derrida is not prescribing a method like a scientist; instead, he's deconstructing the notion of the archive itself.
However, this critical interrogation of archives aligns his work with what's broadly called the Archival Method—an approach that involves analyzing how archives are created, maintained, and used in research and society.
📚 Archival Method in Research:
Involves studying primary documents, institutional records, historical data, etc.
Researchers critically ask: Who created this archive? What is left out? What power structures are at play?
Derrida’s work lays a theoretical foundation for this kind of methodological critique.
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