Art/Anth 332

Contemporary issues in archaeological theory:

interpreting material culture and architectural space

 

Reed College  ×  Spring 2005

 

 

syllabus

 

 

Classes: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 to 10:20 am. in Library 41.

Instr.: mr Harmansah (Office: Library 321)

Office Hours: Fridays 9-12 am and by appointment (e-mail: omur.harmansah@reed.edu).

 

Course Description

 

As a modern discipline archaeology investigates the past through the study of material things. Documenting how past human activities are registered in the material world is central to archaeological research. This material record of human societies are studied and interpreted on a variety of scales, from cultural landscapes to cities, and from architectural spaces to small artifactual assemblages. This course examines various theoretical approaches that have been used in archaeology for interpreting landscapes, architectural space and material culture. On a further level of analysis, we will explore how archaeologists attempted to place such material remains in the context of social practices, cultural processes and long-term history. Discussions will be extended to study how archaeology maintains a dialogue between the interpretation of the past from material remains, and our own definitions of cultural identity and understanding of the modern world today. Following a brief review of the history of the discipline as a social science, issues of representation, style, craft technologies, social complexity, ideology, agency, circulation of knowledge and goods, and production of space will be central themes for the readings and discussions. Case studies of archaeological projects and their interpretative schemes will be drawn especially from the ancient Near Eastern and the classical Mediterranean world.

 

Books ordered through Reed Bookstore:

 

There may be occasional assignments of sections from these books but the students are expected to start reading them right away as the semester starts and our class discussion will often touch upon them. Hodder and Hutson, and Trigger should be read in the first three-to-four weeks while the readings in Meskell and Pruecel will be more extensively used after the first couple of weeks. 

 

Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson. Reading the past: current approaches to interpretation in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Bruce Trigger, A history of archaeological thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lynn Meskell and Robert W. Pruecel (eds.). A Companion to Social Archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. [Optional to purchase]

 

 

Practicalities:

 

This is a course in the course of being constructed, so expect changes in the reading list for every week. A hand-out will be distributed every week on Tuesdays and those will include updates on the syllabus for the following week (readings, discussion schedule, etc) as we move along in the semester.

 

Each student is required to do the weekly readings for the course and participate in class discussions. Each class is dedicated to a theoretical problem, which will be discussed analytically in reference to assigned readings.

 

Requirements:

 

1. Short writing assignments and brief class presentations: Students will occasionally be asked to volunteer to present in class a selected critical article or book chapter related to the overall topic of the week. The assigned student will also guide the discussion on that reading. On the following week, the same student will submit a 4-5 page response paper pertaining to the problems addressed in the article and raised during the discussion.  Depending on the number of students in class, all students will present and write on at least 1-2 articles by the end of the semester.

 

2. Museum visit and writing on artifacts: Involves a visit to Portland Art Museums People of the River: Native Arts of the Oregon Territory exhibition, choosing your favorite artifact and writing about it. You will be expected to address issues of landscape demarcation, spatial definition, monumentality, cultural representation, pictorial narrative, and/or historical commemoration. The idea is to re-imagine the artifact to its original environmental and cultural context, and compare its current status as an exhibited artifact. Some special readings will be assigned to guide you. Details to follow.

See the museums webpage:

http://web.pam.org/asp/special_exhibitions/exhibitions.asp?exhibitionID=21

 

3. Research project: The students will choose a research topic in collaboration with the instructor and turn it into a project. The project should involve an analytical and critical discussion of a theoretical approach and its application to an archaeological case study. The main aim in the research project is the bridge the apparent gap between theoretical discussions in  archaeology and the material evidence. The project will involve a number of a 15-20 min presentation and a number of submissions throughout the semester (proposal, draft, final paper). Take note of submission dates on the syllabus and start thinking about your research project within the first three weeks of the semester.

 

 

Weekly schedule

 

January 25 Tuesday

Introduction: Basic definitions and preliminary discussion. Archaeology, material culture. The ancient material practices that are concerned with the past. The idea of the material manifestations of the past, collective consciousness of ancestral history, collective memory.

 

Start reading on your own. Hodder and Hutson 2003. Reading the Past.

 

Readings of interest:

Winter, Irene J.; 2000. Babylonian archaeologists of the(ir) Mesopotamian past, in Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. P Matthiae et al (eds.); Universit degli studi di Roma La Sapienza,: Roma, 1785-1789. (mrs door)

Van Dyke, Ruth M. & Susan E. Alcock; 2003. Archaeologies of memory: an introduction, in Archaeologies of memory. Ruth M. Van Dyke & Susan E. Alcock (eds.); Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1-13. (mrs door)

Mayor, Adrienne; 2000. The first fossil hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (contact mr)

 

January 27 Thursday

Archaeology as a modern discipline or a discipline of modernity. What is modernity? Archaeology among the social sciences.

 

Readings

Hodder and Hutson 2003. Reading the Past. 1-19.

Thomas, Julian; 2004. Archaeology and modernity. London and New York: Routledge.

Chapter 1. The emergence of modernity and the constitution of archaeology, 1-34.

Chapter 2. Archaeology and the tensions of modernity, 35-54.

 

February 1 Tuesday

Colonialism, antiquarianism and the birth of archaeology: mapping and inventing (not discovering!) ancient landscapes, co-opting ancestral geographies, controlling the past in the Near East. Classicizing paradigm of 19th century discourse: the case of Mesopotamia.

 

Readings

Skim Trigger 27-73.

Gosden, Chris; 2004. The past and the foreign countries: colonial and post-colonial archaeology and anthropology, in A Companion to Social Archaeology. Lynn Meskell and Robert W. Pruecel (eds.). Oxford: Blackwell, 161-178.

Bahrani, Zainab; 1998. Conjuring Mesopotamia: imaginative geography and a world past, in Archaeology under fire: Nationalism, politics and heritage in the Eastern Mediteranean and Middle East. L. Meskell (ed.), Routledge: London and New York, 159-174.

Bohrer, Frederick N.; 2003. Orientalism and visual culture : imagining Mesopotamia in nineteenth-century Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pages 42-66.

 

Presentation  (Adonia)

Turner, Bryan S.; 2001. On the concept of axial space: Orientalism and the originary, Journal of Social Archaeology 1: 62-74.

 

February 3 Thursday

Nationalism, nation state and the use of archaeology in ideologies of modern states. The museums, museum display and imaginary pasts. The case of Germany.

 

Readings

Arnold, Bettina; 1990. The past as propaganda: totalitarian archaeology in Nazi Germany, Antiquity 64: 464-78.

Bohrer, Frederick N.; 2003. Germanys Mesopotamia, 1899 to 1915: beyond the 19th century horizon in Orientalism and visual culture : imagining Mesopotamia in nineteenth-century Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 272-313.

Shnirelman, Victor A.; 1996. The faces of nationalist archaeology in Russia, in Nationalism and archaeology in Europe. Margarita Daz-Andreu and Timothy Champion (eds.). Boulder: Westview Press, 218-242.

 

Presentation (Alex and Chris)

Bernbeck, Reinhard; 2000. The exhibition of architecture and the architecture of exhibition: the changing face of the Pergamon museum, Archaeological Dialogues 7: 98-124, bibliography 138-145.

Diebold, William J.; 1995 "The Politics of Derestoration:  The Aegina Pediments and the German Confrontation with the Past,"  Art Journal 54: 60-66.

 

February 8 Tuesday

Gordon Childe and culture-history. The Neolithic Revolution and the Urban Revolution. The emergence of the social in archaeological theory.

 

Readings

Trigger 148-206 (Read through/skim).

Childe, V. Gordon; 1942. Archaeology and history in What happened in history, London: Max Parrish, (1960 edition) 1-17. (E-reserve, also stacks CB 311. C53W)

Childe, V. Gordon; 1950. The urban revolution, Town Planning Review 21: 3-17 (Our copy from Foundations of Social Archaeology: Selected Writings of V. Gordon Childe, Thomas C. Patterson and Charles E. Orser (eds.), Altamira Press: Walnut Creek 2004: 107-116). (E-reserve)

Hodder, Ian; 2004. The social in archaeological theory: an historical and contemporary perspective in A Companion to Social Archaeology: 3-22. (Book on Reserve)

 

Presentation article (Mireille)

Wailes, Bernard; 1996. V. Gordon Childe and the relations of production, in Craft specialization and social evolution: in memory of V. Gordon Childe.  Bernard Wailes (ed.). University Museum Symposium Series Volume VI, University Museum Monography 93.  Philadelphia: The University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of Pennsylvania,  3-14. [Mireille]

 

February 10 Thursday

Post-world war archaeology in America. Gordon Willey: towards an ecological understanding of archaeological landscapes.

 

Readings

Willey, Gordon R. and. Philip Phillips; 1958. Method and theory in American archaeology. University of Chicago Press. Pages 1-57. (E-reserve but also Stacks E61.W7- please dont check out).

Willey, Gordon R.; 1953. Prehistoric settlement patterns in the Vir valley Peru. Washington DC. Pages 1-12 and 400-421. (E-reserve but to see the whole book, see also Stacks F3429.1V77 W56 1953).

Wandsnider, LuAnn; 1998. Regional scale processes and archaeological landscape units, in Unit issues in archaeology: measuring time, space, and material. Ann F. Ramenofsky and Anastasia Steffen (eds.). Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 87-102. (E-reserve but also Stacks CC75 U53 1998).

 

Presentation (Christine)

Knapp, A. Bernard and Wendy Ashmore; 1999. Archaeological landscapes: constructed, conceptualized, ideational, in Archaeologies of landscape: contemporary perspectives. W. Ashmore and A.B. Knapp (eds.), Blackwell: Malden MA, 1-30. (E-reserve but also Stacks CC75 A655 1999).

 

February 15 Tuesday

Binford and Processual archaeology. Ecological evolutionism and scientific method of interpreting the past.

 

Readings

Trigger 289-328 (Read through/skim). Hodder and Hutson, Chapter 2.

Binford, Lewis R.; 1967. Smudge pits and hide smoking: the use of analogy in archaeological reasoning, American antiquity 32: 1-12. (E-reserve)

Munson, Patrick J; 1969. Comments on Binfords Smudge pits and hide smoking: the use of analogy in archaeological reasoning American antiquity 34: 83-85. (E-reserve)

Binford, Lewis R.; 1972. Archaeological reasoning and smudge pits - revisited, in An archaeological perspective. New York and London: Seminar Press, 52-58. (E-reserve)

Binford, Lewis R.; 1980. Willow smoke and dogs tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation, American Antiquity 45: 4-20. (E-reserve)

 

Presentation (Joey)

Binford, Lewis R.; 1972. Archaeological perspectives, in An archaeological perspective. New York and London: Seminar Press, 78-104. (E-reserve)

 

February 17 Thursday

The critique of Binford: doubts about the scientific method and positivism. The response from social theory.

 

Readings

Tilley, Christopher and Michael Shanks; 1987. Reconstructing archaeology: theory and practice. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, pages 7-67. (Reserve)

Hodder and Hutson, 2 Processual and systems approaches 20-44.

 

Presentation:

Yoffee, Norman and Andrew Sherratt; 1993. Introduction: the sources of archaeological theory, in Archaeological theory: who sets the agenda. N Yoffee and A Sherratt (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-9. (E-reserve: Stacks CC72 A65 1993)

 

February 22 Tuesday

[Start thinking about Research projects, meet with Omur for suggestions.]

The Annales school and Fernand Braudel: applications of a Braudelian approach to landscape archaeology.

 

Readings

Braudel, Fernand; 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II. Harper and Row: New York. Translation of La Mditerrane et le monde Mditerranen lՃpoque de Philippe II. Librairie Armand Colin: Paris, 1966. Volume 1 Mountains come first pages 25-53. (Reserve Main and Stacks DE 80 B7713 1972)

Bintliff, John; 1991. The contribution of an Annaliste/structural history approach to archaeology, in The Annales School and archaeology. John Bintliff (ed.); New York University Press: New York, 1-33. (E-reserve)

Barker, Graeme; 1991. Two Italys, one valley: an Annaliste perspective in The Annales School and archaeology. John Bintliff (ed.); New York University Press: New York, 34-56. (E-reserve)

 

February 24 Thursday

The Corrupting Sea: problem-oriented approaches. The ideas of cross-cultural and interregional interaction, interconnectivity and trade: various economic models. Bronze age world system of the Mediterranean.

 

Readings

Horden, Peregrine and Nicholas Purcell; 2000. The corrupting sea: A study of the Mediterranean history, Blackwell: Oxford. Read A geographical expression pp. 9-25 and Connectivity 123-152. Also look at Table of contents about the range of topics that the work addresses. (E-reserve: Stacks DE 59 H7 2000) .

Shaw, Brent D.; 2001. Challenging Braudel: a new vision of the Mediterranean, Journal of Roman Archaeology 14: 419-453.

Sherratt, Andrew and Susan Sherratt; 1998. Small worlds: interaction and identity in the Ancient Mediterranean, in The Aegean and the Orient in the Second millennium. Proceedings of the 50th anniversary symposium Cincinnati, 18-20 April 1997. Eric H. Cline and Diane Harris-Cline (eds.); Universit de Lige. Lige, pp. 329-342. (E-reserve)

 

March 1 Tuesday

Contextual archaeology: the multiple meanings of material culture in the post-structuralist discourse. The problem of meaning and symbolism in archaeology.

 

Readings

Hodder and Hutson, Reading the past. Chapter 3. Structuralist, post-structuralist and semiotic archaeologies, pp 45-74 and Chapter 8. Contextual archaeology, pp 156-205.

Tilley, Christopher; 1989. Interpreting material culture, in The meanings of things: material culture and symbolic expression. Ian Hodder (ed.). London: Unwin Hyman, 185-194. (Reserve Main CC72.4 M43 1989).

Thomas, Julian; 1993. The hermeneutics of megalithic space, in Interpretative archaeology. C Tilley (ed.); Providence: Berg, pp. 73-97. (E-reserve: Stacks CC72 I56 1993)

 

Presentation (Alexandra)

Hodder, Ian; 1992. Symbols in action, in Theory and pactice in archaeology. Routledge: London, 24-44. (Reserve Main CC 173 H63 1992).

 

March 3 Thursday

Post-processual archaeologist goes to the field: towards a reflexive archaeology.

 

Readings

Hodder and Hutson, Reading the past. Chapter 9. Postprocessual archaeology (206-235).

Hodder, Ian; 1992. The Haddenham causewayed enclosure a hermeneutic circle in Theory and practice in archaeology. London: Routledge, 213-240. (E-reserve)

Hodder, Ian; 1999. Towards a reflexive method in The archaeological process: an introduction. Oxford: Blackwell., pp 80-104 (E-reserve).

 

Presentation (Provo)

Wylie, Alison; 2002. Heavily decomposing red herrings: middle ground in the anti-/postprocessualism wars in Thinking from things: essays in the philosophy of archaeology. University of California Press: Berkeley, 171-178. (E-reserve: Stacks CC 72 W88 2002)

 

March 8 Tuesday

Archaeologies of gender and sexuality: Social distribution of labor and domestic contexts. Women in perhistory, ritual contexts.

 

Readings

Gero, John M. and Margaret Conkey; 1991. Tensions, pluralities and engendering archaeology: an introduction to women and prehistory, in Engendering archaeology: women and prehistory. John M Gero and Margaret Conkey (eds.), Blackwell: Malden MA, 3-30. (E-reserve)

Joyce, Rosemary; 2004. Embodied subjectivity: gender, femininity, masculinty, sexuality, in A companion to social archaeology: 82-95. (Reserve Main CC72.4 C67 2004).

Pollock, Susan ; 1991. Women in a mens world: images of Sumerian women, in Engendering archaeology: women and prehistory. John M Gero and Margaret Conkey (eds.), Blackwell: Malden MA, 366-387. (E-reserve)

Conkey, Margaret; 2000. Meanwhile back at the village: debating the archaeologies of sexuality, in Archaeologies of sexuality. Schmidt, Robert A. and Barbara L. Voss (eds.)London and New York: Routledge, 287-294.

 

Presentation (Gwendolyn)

Meskell, Lynn; 2000. Re-em(bed)ding sex: domesticity, sexuality, and ritual in New Kingdom Egypt, in Archaeologies of sexuality. Schmidt, Robert A. and Barbara L. Voss (eds.)London and New York: Routledge, 253-262.

 

March 10 Thursday

[Research Paper topic proposals with preliminary bibliography due.]

Discussion of People of the River exhibit assignment.

 

Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley, 1987. Presenting the Past: towards a redemptive aesthetic for the museum in Re-Constructing archaeology: theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 68-99. (E-reserve).

 

March 12-20 Spring Break

 

March 22 Tuesday

Ideology, politics of materiality and the cultural representation of space in the archaeological record.

 

Readings

Eagleton; Terry; 1991. What is ideology? in Ideology: an introduction. Verso: London, 1991, pp. 1-32. (E-reserve)

DeMarrais, Elizabeth; Luis Jaime Castillo; Timothy Earle; 1996. Ideology, materialization and power strategies, Current Anthropology 37: 15-31. (E-reserve-accessible through JSTOR-Reed Library Databases page)

Hodder and Hutson, Reading the past. Chapter 4. Marxism and ideology, pp 75-89.

 

March 24 Thursday

Archaeologies of social memory. Halbwachss concept of collective memoryt and its applications in archaeological theory.

 

Readings

Halbwachs, Maurice; 1992. On collective memory. Lewis A. Coser (ed. and trans.); originally published as Les cadres sociaux de la mmoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952) and La topographie lgendaire des vangiles en terre sainte: Etude de mmoire collective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1941). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Pages 37-53. (E-reserve- Stacks BF378. S65 h35 1992)

Alcock, Susan E.; 2002. Archaeologies of the Greek past: landscape, monuments, and memories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pages 1-35.

Meskell, Lynn; 2003. Memorys materiality: ancestral presence, commemorative practice and disjunctive locales, in Archaeologies of memory. Ruth M. Van Dyke & Susan E. Alcock (eds.); Oxford: Blackwell publishing, 34-55.

 

March 29 Tuesday

Agency and social practice. Various social and individual agencies in the sphere of material culture; social practices and the making of artifacts and architectural space.

 

Readings

Hodder and Hutson, Reading the past. Chapter 5. Agency and practice, pp 90-105.

Bourdieu, Pierre; 1990. Structures, habitus, practices in The logic of practice. R. Nice (trans.), Stanford University Press: Stanford California, 52-65.

Dobres, Marcia-Anne and John E. Robb; 2000. Agency in archaeology: paradigm or platitude? in Agency in archaeology. Marcia-Anne Dobres and John E. Robb (eds.). London and New York: Routledge, 3-17.

Smith, Adam T; 2001. The Limitations of Doxa: Agency and Subjectivity from an Archaeological Point of  View.  Journal of Social Archaeology  1(2): 155-171.  (E-reserve)

Joyce, Arthur A.; 2000. The founding of Mont Alban: sacred propositions and social practices in Agency in archaeology. Marcia-Anne Dobres and John E. Robb (eds.). London and New York: Routledge, 71-91.

 

March 31 Thursday

Style and technology in-between archaeology and art history: technological style or material style. New definitions of the material world and its meanings, through a critical approach to technologies of production of artifacts.

 

Readings

Chilton, Elizabeth S.; 1999. Material meanings and meaningful materials: an introduction, in Material meanings: critical approaches to the interpretation of material culture. Elizabeth S. Chilton (ed.); Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1-6.

Wobst, H. Martin; 1999. Style in archaeology or archaeologists in style, in Material meanings: critical approaches to the interpretation of material culture. Elizabeth S. Chilton (ed.); Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 118-132.

Dietler, Michael and Ingrid Herbich; 1998. Habitus, techniques, style: an integrated approach to the social understanding of material culture and boundaries in The archaeology of social boundaries. M. T. Stark (ed.); Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 232-263.

Winter, Irene J.; 1998. The affective properties of styles: An inquiry into analytical process and the inscription of meaning in art history, in Picturing Science, Producing Art, C.A. Jones and P. Galison (eds.), New York & London: Routledge; 55-77.

 

Presentation (Eva)

Ingold, Tim; 2000. Society, nature and the concept of technology, in The perception of the environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. New York & London: Routledge: 312-322.

 

April 5 Tuesday

Empires, narrative and history: material and imaginary constructions of landscapes and architectural space.

 

Readings

Sinopoli, Carla M.; 1994. The archaeology of empires, Annual review of anthropology 23: 159-180.

Smith, Adam; 2003. Polities in The political landscape. University of California Press: 149-183.

Jennings, Justin and Willy Ypez lvarez; 2001. Architecture, local elites and imperial entanglements: the Wari empire and the Cotahuasi valley of Peru, Journal of Field Archaeology 28: 143-159.

Alcock, Susan E.; 2001. The reconfiguration of memory in the eastern Roman empire, in Empires: perspectives from archaeology and history, S. E. Alcock et.al. (eds.), Cambridge: 323-350.

 

April 7 Thursday

Phenomenology of architectural space: interpretations of archaeological places. Concepts of natural place, landscape and the social space.

 

Readings

Blake, Emma; 2004. Space, spatiality and archaeology,in A companion to social archaeology, 215-229. (Reserve Main CC72.4 C67)

Tilley, Christopher; 1994. Space, place, landscape and perception: phenomenological perspectives, A phenomenology of landscapes: places, paths, monuments. Oxford/Providence: Berg, pp. 7-34. (E-reserve)

Hirsch, Eric; 1995. Landscape: between place and space, in The anthropology of landscape: perspectives on place and space. Eric Hirsch and Michael OHanlon (eds.); Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1-30. (E-reserve)

 

Presentation (Joey)

Nora, Pierre; 1989. Between memory and history: Les lieux de memoire, Representations 26: 7-24. (E-reserve/JSTOR)

 

April 12 Tuesday

Archaeology and the problems of historical representation.

 

Readings

Ankersmit, F. R.; 2001. In praise of subjectivity, in Historical representation. Stanford University Press: Stanford, California, 75-103.

Bernbeck, Reinhard; 2005. The past as fact and fiction: from historical novels to novel histories in Archaeologies of the Middle East: critical perspectives. S Pollock and R Bernbeck (eds.). Blackwell: 97-121. (Reserve Main DS 56 A735 2005)

 

Presentation (Matthew)

Moser, Stephanie; 2001. Archaeological representation: the visual conventions for constructing knowledge about the past, in Archaeological theory today. Ian Hodder (ed.). Polity Press: Cambridge, 262-283. (E-reserve)

 

April 14 Thursday

Politics and cultural heritage: a post-colonial perspective. Archaeological places as embattled sites of local identities.

 

Readings

Meskell, Lynn and Robert W. Preucel; 2004. Politics,in A companion to social archaeology, 315-234. (Reserve Main CC72.4 C67)

Bernbeck, Reinhard and Susan Pollock; 1996. Ayodha, archaeology and identity, Current Anthropology 37: 138-142. (JSTOR database)

Guha-Takurta, Tapati; 2003. Archaeology and the monument: an embattled site of history and memory in contemporary India, in Monuments and memory, made and unmade. Robert s. Nelson and Margaret Olin (eds.), University of Chicago Press, 233-257. (E-reserve)

 

April 15 Friday

[Talk at Portland Art Museum (1219 S.W. Park Avenue), Whitsell Auditorium 6:00 pm.]

Dr. Frederick N. Bohrer, Associate Professor of Art, Hood College, and author of Orientalism in Visual Culture: Imagining Mesopotamia in Nineteenth-Century Europe.

 

April 19 Tuesday

[Research Paper drafts due.]

Student presentations of research topics. Each presentation: 10-15 min. Discussion 15 min.

 

Joey

Societ archaeology: nationalism and archaeology.

Matthew

Acquisition of objective data: an interdisciplinary problem.

Provo

Interpretation of architectural space; Byzantine churches of Cappadocia.

 

 

April 21 Thursday

[Research Paper drafts due.]

Student presentations of research topics. Each presentation: 10-15 min. Discussion 15 min.

 

Brian

Role of the museum as an institution.

Adonia

Chaco Canyon: multiple readings of a place through archaeology's material objects.

Gwendolyn

Repatriation act: the construction and appropriation of Native American "heritage" in archaeological discourse.

Christine

Archaeoastronomy: Mayan observation and observatories. Gender and power relations.

 

April 26 Tuesday

[Research Paper drafts due.]

Student presentations of research topics. Each presentation: 10-15 min. Discussion 15 min.

 

Alexander

Landscape archaeology and religion: the Incan huacas.

Mireille

Considering Braudel's theories; olive cultivation in the Mediterranean during the Dark Ages.

Christopher

 

History as a textual representation: material culture and its contexts.

 

 

April 28 Thursday

[Research Paper drafts due.]

Student presentations of research topics. Each presentation: 10-15 min. Discussion 15 min.

 

Eva

The question of style: archaeological and art-historical perspectives. Late Bronze Age exchange goods in the Mediterranean.

 

Discussion:

Archaeology, the politics of cultural heritage and the contemporary culture: what can archaeology offer.

 

Reading:

Tilley, Christopher; 1998. Archaeology as a socio-political action in the present in Reader in archaeological theory: post-processual and cognitive approaches. David S. Whitley (ed.), Routledge: London and New York, 315-330.

 

May 12 Research Papers due.