Omur Harmansah

Assistant Professor of Archaeology and Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies:
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
Phone: +1 401 863 6411
Phone 2: +1 401 421 1641
Omur_Harmansah@brown.edu

PhD in History of Art, MA in Architectural History, B. Architecture

Brown University Research Profile Page for Omur Harmansah

Working in the field of archaeology, architectural history and material culture of the ancient Near East, Ömür Harmanşah's academic interests are increasingly focused on the intersections of architectural space, bodily performance and collective memory. He is particularly influenced by the developing fields of material culture studies, anthropological theories of art, technology and agency, ethnographies of space, place and landscape, and phenomenological approaches to spatiality.

Interests

Having been initially educated as an architect and architectural historian, I intend to contribute to archaeological theory and practice especially by pursuing issues of the production of social spaces in antiquity. Material culture approaches are particularly relevant in pursuing architectural technologies in ancient contexts as well as the circulation of architectural/craft knowledge.

An odd list of fields I see myself affiliated with:

* archaeology, material culture and architectural history of the Ancient Near East, particularly Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia;
* archaeological and architectural theory in general,
* theories of space, place and landscape; including cities and production of urban space, commemorative monuments and collective memory.
* cultural studies; material culture studies; technology and agency; production and circulation of artisanal knowledge;
* theories of representation, body and performance;
* architectural and topographic documentation/representation of archaeological landscapes and sites.

As archaeologists, our research is usually dependant upon rigorous fieldwork. Since 1993, I participated in several archaeological projects in Turkey and Greece such as Kerkenes Dag and Isthmia, while I am currently involved with projects at Gordion and Ayanis in Turkey. At Gordion, this Phrygian site in Central Anatolia, I have been working on the Early Iron age building technologies. At Ayanis, I have worked on the use of stone in the architecture of this Urartian city, located on the Eastern shore of Lake Van in Eastern Turkey. Starting in 2007, I have become affiliated with an ethnoarchaeological project at Ayanis, where I took on the task of documenting architectural traditions and building technologies at the nearby village of Ayanis. I am in the process of developing a field project on the questions of event, place and performance in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age rock relief - spring sanctuary sites in South-central Turkey.

Here is a recent talk that I have presented at Brown and that gives a good idea of what I have been working on:

"Event Place Performance: The Making of the Urban Space in Early Iron Age Karkamish" Brown University, April 6, 2007.

Teaching

Most of my teaching has so far focused on the intersection of two major fields of inquiry: art, architecture and material culture of the ancient Near East on the one hand, and the archaeological, architectural, and art-historical theories used in the study of the ancient world on the other. I plan to continue teaching courses that focus on the intersections of contemporary theory and the archaeological evidence, with particular emphasis on theories of material culture and architectural space and a broad geographical focus on the ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean world (especially Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria, Iran, Egypt and the Levant). I do favor thematically designed courses such as those that I have taught so far: "Architecture, Body, and Performance," "Architecture and Memory" and "Material Worlds", and I plan to design new courses that engage with bodies of theoretical discourse and pursue new readings of relevant art-historical and architectural material, especially those that relate to issues of space, body, representation, gender and sexuality, performance, ideology and social memory.

You can reach the web pages of each course I have taught here. In Spring 2008, I am currently teaching a graduate seminar called Archaeologies of Place as well as a graduate/undergraduate course entitled Architecture and Memory.

Web Links

Curriculum Vitae

Download Omur Harmansah's Curriculum Vitae in PDF Format