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Abstract
Arlene Schmuland (1999) and Karen Buckley (2008) wrote what are probably the most frequently cited articles addressing representations of archives and archivists in popular culture; their work suggests that the pop-cultural understanding of what archives are and what archivists do is often muddled at best (and wildly inaccurate at worst, often confusing archives with libraries, among other sins). In this presentation, we revisit Schmuland and Buckley’s work in the context of a study of The Magnus Archives, in order to suggest the tantalizing possibility that a horror podcast might have found its fear in a more accurate (and more critical) understanding of how archives work, both in terms of archival practice and in terms of archival ethics.