Week 1: Feb 1. Introduction: overview of the course.
- Orbach, Susie; 2009. Bodies. New York: Picador: 1-32.
Week 2: Feb 8. Body and its performances in recent critical theory and archaeology
- Shilling, Chris; 2005. “Introduction” and “Contemporary bodies” in Body in culture, technology and society.London: Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE, 1-23 and 47-72.
- Turner, Bryan S.; 2000. “An outline of a general sociology of the body,” in The Blackwell companion to social theory. Bryan S. Turner (ed.). Second edition. Malden MA: Blackwell, 481-502.
- Joyce, Rosemary; 2005. “Archaeology of the body,” Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 139-158.
- Borić, Dušan and John Robb; 2008. “Body theory in archaeology” in Past bodies: body-centered research in archaeology. Dušan Borić and John Robb (eds.). Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1-7.
- Meskell, Lynn M. 1996: “The somatisation of archaeology: institutions, discourses, corporeality,” Norwegian Archaeological Review 29(1): 1-16.
Week 3. Feb 15. Body, image and knowledge: rock art and shamanistic performance
Göbeklitepe and Nevalı Çori: early Neolithic sites in Southeastern Turkey.
Bodies: animal and human
- Tilley, Christopher; 2008. “Body and image” in Body and image: explorations in landscape phenomenology 2. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 15-52.
- Lewis-Williams, J. David; 2001. “South African shamanistic rock art in its social and cognitive contexts,” in Archaeology of shamanism. Niel S. Price (ed.). London and New York: Routledge, 17-39.
- Turnbull, David; 2002. “Performance and narrative, bodies and movement in the construction of places and objects, spaces and knowledges,” Theory, Culture & Society 19 (5/6): 125-143.
- Ingold, Tim; 2000. “Totemisim, animisim and the depiction of animals,” in Perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge, 111-131.
- Miracle, Preston and Dušan Borić; 2008. “Bodily beliefs and agricultural beginnings in Western Asia: animal-human hybridity re-examined” in Past bodies: body-centered research in archaeology. Dušan Borić and John Robb (eds.). Oxford: Oxbow Books, 101-113.
Göbeklitepe and Nevalı Çori: spaces of Neolithic performance (Presentation- Emanuela)
- Hauptmann, Harald; 1999. “Urfa Region” in Neolithic in Turkey. Mehmet Özdogan and Nezih Basgelen (eds.). Istanbul: Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yayinlari, 65-86.
- Schmidt, Klaus; 2000. “Göbekli Tepe and the rock art of the Near East,” TÜBA-AR 3: 1-14.
- Schmidt, Klaus; 2000. “Göbekli Tepe, Southeastern Turkey. A Preliminary Report on the 1995-1999 Excavations.” Paléorient 26: 45-54.
February 22 Long-weekend. No class
Week 4. March 1. Performance and performativity: towards an understanding of performed and embodied spaces, subjects, societies.
Çatalhöyük houses: social memory and everyday performance.
What is performance?
- Schechner, Richard; 2002. “What is performance?” Performance studies: an introduction. Routledge, 28-50.
- Mitchell, Jon P.; 2006. “Performance” in Handbook of material culture. Christopher Tilley et. al. (eds.). London: Sage Publications, 384-401.
- Carlson, Marvin; 2004. “The performance of culture: anthropological and ethnographic approaches” in Performance: a critical inttroduction. Second Edition. New York: Routledge, 11-30.
Çatalhöyük: architecture and everyday life (Presentation - Yagmur)
For all to read:
- Lewis-Williams, David; 2004. “Constructing a cosmos: architecture, power and domestication at Çatalhöyük,” Journal of Social Archaeology 4: 28-60.
- Last, Jonathan; 1998. “A design for life: interpreting the art of Çatalhöyük” Journal of material culture 3: 355-378.
Yagmur's presentation:
- Hodder, Ian; 2006. “The spectacle of daily performance at Çatalhöyük,” in Archaeology of performance: theaters of power, community, and politics. Takeshi Inomata and Lawrenbce S. Cohen (eds.). Lanham: Altamira Press, 81-102.
- Hodder, Ian and C. Cessford; 2004. “Daily practice and social memory at Çatalhöyük,” American Antiquity 69: 17-40.
Week 5. March 8. A performative theory for prehistoric figurines
Beyond the goddess: Figurine studies and the Neolithic
- Bailey, Douglas W.; 2008. “The corporeal politics of being in the Neolithic,” in Past bodies: body-centered research in archaeology. Dušan Borić and John Robb (eds.). Oxford: Oxbow Books, 9-19.
- Tringham, Ruth and Margaret Conkey; 1998. “Rethinking Figurines: a critical analysis of Archaeology, Feminism and Popular Culture” in Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence. C. Morris and C Goodison, ed.. London: British Museum Press.
- Joyce, Rosemary; 2008. “Goddesses, matriarchs and manly-hearted women: troubling categorical approaches to gender,” in Ancient bodies, ancient lives: sex, gender and archaeology. Thames and Hudson, 46-66.
Çatalhöyük figurine project (Presentation)Andrew
Visit Figurines project website.
- Hodder, Ian; 2006. “Materiality, 'art' and agency” The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Catalhoyuk. Thames & Hudson, 185-216.
- Nakamura, Carolyn and Lynn Meskell; 2009. "Articulate bodies: forms and figures at Çatalhöyük," Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16/3: 205-230.
- Meskell, Lynn; Carolyn Nakamura; Rachel King & Shahina Farid; 2008. “Figured Lifeworlds and Depositional Practices at Çatalhöyük” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18: 139-161.
Week 6. March 15. Royal tombs of Ur: Death rituals, bodily violence and burying the dead: transformed bodies
Body, violence, power
- Foucault, Michel; 2007. ”…The study of bio-power” in Security, territory, population: lectures at College de France 1977-1978. Picador, 1-28.
- Bahrani, Zainab; 2008. “The king’s head,”in Rituals of war: The body and violence in Mesopotamia. New York: Zone Books, 23-55.
- Richardson, Seth; 2007. “Death and dismemberment: in Mesopotamia: Discorporation between the Body and Body Politic,” in Performing Death: Social analysis of funerray traditions in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. N. laneri (ed.). Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications, 189-208.
Royal tombs of Ur (Presentation- Yeshi)
- Cohen, Andrew C; 2005. Death rituals, ideology, and the development of early Mesopotamian kingship : toward a new understanding of Iraq's royal cemetery of Ur. Leiden ; Boston: Brill.
- Dickson, Bruce; 2006. “Public transcripts expressed in theatres of cruelty: the Royal Graves at Ur in Mesopotamia,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16/2: 123-144.
- Pollock, S.; 2007. “The Royal Cemetery of Ur: Ritual, tradition and the creation of subjects,” in Representations of political power: case histories from times of change and dissolving order in the Ancient Near East. M. Heinz and M. H. Feldman (eds.). Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 89-110.
- McCaffrey, Katherine; 2008. “Female kings of Ur,” in Gender through time in the ancient Near East. Lanham, MD : AltaMira Press, 173-216.
- Zettler, R. L. and L. Horne(eds.); 1998. Treasures from the royal tombs of Ur. Philadelphia: University of Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Week 7. March 22. Embodied subjectivities: Constructions of gender and sexuality
Sexing the body
- Fausto-Sterling, Anne; 2000. Sexing the body : gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York, NY : Basic Books, 1-44.
- Joyce, Rosemary; 2004. “Embodied subjectivity: gender, femininity, masculinity, sexuality,” in A companion to social archaeology. Lynn Meskell and Robert W. Preucel (eds.). Nalden MA: Blackwell, 82-95.
- Knapp, A. Bernard; 1998. “Boys will be Boys: Masculinist Approaches to a Gendered Archaeology” in Reader in archaeological theory : post-processual and cognitive approaches. D. S. Whitley (ed.). London: Routledge, 241-256.
Naram Sin and the aspects of masculinity (Presentation)
- Winter, Irene J.; 1996. “Sex, rhetoric and the public monument: the alluring body of Naram-Sin of Agade” in Sexuality in Ancient Art, N.B.Kampen (ed.), Cambridge: 11-26.
- Bahrani, Zainab; 2008. “Death and the ruler,”in Rituals of war: The body and violence in Mesopotamia. New York: Zone Books, 101-130.
Friday March 26, 5 pm. Short Paper Assignment due
March 27-April 4 Spring break
Week 8. April 5. The polemically trans-gendered and the hyper-sexual body in Mesopotamia
Nudity, sex and the Old Babylonian terracotta plaques
- Bahrani, Zainab; 2001. “Metaphorics of the body: nudity, the goddess and the gaze,” in Women of Babylon: gender and representation in Mesopotamia. London: Routledge, 40-69.
- Asher-Greve, Julia M.; 1998. “The essential body: Mesopotamian conceptions of the gendered body,” in Gender and the body in the ancient Mediterranean. Maria Wyke (ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell, 8-37.
- Assante, Julia; 2003. “From whores to hierodules: the historiographic invention of Mesopotamian female sex professionals,” in Ancient art and its historiography. Alice A. Donohue and Mark D. Fullerton (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 13-47.
- Boger, Diane R.; 2008. Gender through time in the ancient Near East. Lanham, MD : AltaMira Press.
Lamentation priests
- Bachvarova; Mary R.; 2008. “Sumerian gala priests and Eastern Mediterranean returning gods: tragic lamentation in cross-cultural perspective,” in Lament: studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and beyond. Ann Suter (ed.). Oxford University Press, 18-52.
- Cooper, Jerrold S.; 2006. “Genre, gender and the Sumerian lamentation.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 58: 39-47.
Terracotta plaques (Presentation) Michelle
- Moorey, P.R.S.; 2003. Idols of the people : miniature images of clay in the ancient Near East. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
Week 9. April 12. Ömür is out of town- no class
Week 10. April 19. Performing gender, performing sex: The debate over the Sacred Marriage ritual
Gender performance
- Butler J. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York: Routledge, 1-27.
- Joyce, Rosemary; 2008. “Sensous figures, celibates and sex workers: thinking about sex in the past,” in Ancient bodies, ancient lives: sex, gender and archaeology. Thames and Hudson, 86-114.
- Perry, E.M. and Rosemary Joyce; 2001. “Providing a past for Bodies that matter. Judith Butler’s impact on archaeology of gender,” International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies 6: 63-76.
Early Mesopotamian “sacred marriage” ritual (Presentation-Amanda)
- Cooper, Jerrold; 1993. “Sacred marriage and popular cult in early Mesopotamia,” in Official cult and popular religion in the Ancient Near East. Heidelberg: Universtatsverlag C. Winter, 81-96.
- Steinkeller, Piotr; 1999. “On rulers, priests and sacred marriage: tracing the evolution of Early Sumerian kingship,” in Priests and officials in the Ancient Near East. K. Watanabe (ed.), Universitätsverlag C. Winter: Heidelberg, 103-137.
- Jones, Philip; 2003. “Embracing Inana: Legitimation and Mediation in the Ancient Mesopotamian Sacred Marriage Hymn Iddin-Dagan A” The Journal of the American Oriental Society 123: 291-302.
Week 11. April 26. Body, movement and landscape: phenomenology of the “lived body” in the place-world
Moving bodies in the landscape
- Tilley, Christopher with Wayne Bennett; 2004. “From body to place to landscape: a phenomenological perspective,” in The materiality of stone: explorations in Landscape Phenomenology: 1. Oxford: Berg, 1-32.
- Casey, Edward; 2001. “Body, self and landscape: geophilosophical inquiry into the place-world,” in Textures of place: exploring humanist geographies. P.C. Adams et al. (eds.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 403-425.
- Ingold, Tim and John Lee Vergunst; 2008. Ways of walking: ethnography and practice on foot. Burlington VT: Ashgate.
Border Steles and Rock reliefs in the Ancient Near East (Marianna)
- Volk, Lucia; 2008. "When memory repeats itself: The politics of heritage in post civil war Lebanon," International Journal of Middle East Studies 40: 291-314.
- Shafer, Ann; “Assyrian royal monuments on the periphery: ritual and the making of imperial space,” in Ancient Near Eastern art in context: studies in honor of Irene J. Winter. J. Cheng and M. H. Feldman (eds.). Boston and Leiden: Brill, 133-160.
Week 12 May 3. Presentations of research projects
Research paper drafts due
Week. 13. May 10. Archaeological fieldwork as bodily performance
- Pearson, Mike and Michael Shanks; 2001. Theater/archaeology. Routledge, pages TBA.
Final papers due: May 17th, by 5 pm. Hard copy in Ömür’s mailbox.
