• Julia Hurley, a doctoral candidate in Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, will be discussing her research in an informal talk. 

    Register for this event here

    For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit
    https://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2020/09/10/brown-bag-talks-for-fall-2020/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities
  • This event is part of the four-part webinar series Pandemics and Plagues in Antiquity. The series is free and open to the public, registration is required. Visit http://brown.edu/go/AncientPandemics for more information.

    Marcel Keller is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Estonia. He received his PhD in Archaeogenetics from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History where he focused his research on the first and second historically documented pandemics caused by Yersinia pestis: the ‘Justinianic Plague’ at the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (541-750) and the Late Medieval ‘Black Death’ (1347-1353) followed by reoccurring epidemics in Europe until the 18th century. With genomic and phylogenetic approaches on ancient DNA from skeletal remains, he explores the biology and dispersal in space and time of this exemplary human pathogen. His recent publications include the widespread identification of victims of the First Pandemic utilizing ancient DNA across Western Europe, and analyzing the phylogeography of the Second Pandemic using DNA from the 14th-18th centuries.

    More Information Biology, Medicine, Public Health, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Social Sciences
  • Juliane Schlag, a Voss Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environment and Society at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES), will be discussing her research in an informal talk. 

    Register for this event

    See a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks at
    https://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2020/09/10/brown-bag-talks-for-fall-2020/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities
  • Join Virtual EventInstructions: Trowel

    As a follow-up to the Women Do Archaeology series, the Trowelblazers@Brown and Haffenreffer are hosting a discussion to talk about some of the topics addressed in the series, as well as other issues that women and other underrepresented groups face when doing archaeology. This event is open to all Brown community members and we encourage people of all gender identities to attend!
    Please note that you will need to sign into Zoom with your Brown.edu email address to join this meeting!

    Trowelblazers@Brown is a group of early career researchers from historically underrepresented communities and their allies coming together in solidarity to reflect on experiences in the field and academia and engage in meaningful exchanges related to gender issues and accessibility. This group is striving towards a more intersectional understanding of what it means to be a woman in archaeology and the challenges one may or may not face in doing so. The name of our group is a reference to the women-in-the-field movement called Trowelblazers (http://trowelblazers.com/), although we are not officially affiliated with them. You can find us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1179629722128068/) – join the group for updates and event info!

    The Women Do Archaeology series, hosted by the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, was inspired by 2020’s centennial commemoration of the 19th Amendment, and held in celebration of Rhode Island’s Archaeology Month. Each Thursday in October, the Haffenreffer highlighted the work of women archaeologists and anthropologists affiliated with the Museum. You can watch videos from all five talks on the Haffenreffer’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL031FD246CE1CDC15&feature=plcp.

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion
  • This event is part of the four-part webinar series Pandemics and Plagues in Antiquity. The series is free and open to the public, registration is required. Visit http://brown.edu/go/AncientPandemics for more information.

    Hunter Gardner is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of South Carolina. She is an affiliate of Women’s and Gender Studies and recently joined the core faculty of both the Comparative Literature Program and the South Carolina Honors College. Dr. Gardner is the author of two monographs, Gendering Time in Augustan Love Elegy (2013) and Pestilence and the Body Politic in Latin Literature (2019). This most recent book explores the development of plague narratives in the western tradition and, in particular, looks to Roman epic poets writing in the late Republic and early Principate as significant contributors to depictions of contagion. Like her work on Latin love elegy, the project draws in part from an understanding of the social upheavals and civil discord that characterized this period of Roman history, with its shift from aristocratic governance to quasi-monarchy under Augustus.

    Dr. Gardner also regularly teaches and publishes in the area of reception studies. She recently co-edited a collection of essays on adaptations of the Odysseus myth in various media (novels, visual arts, television) and teaches a course on the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in cinema and popular culture.

    More Information Biology, Medicine, Public Health, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Social Sciences
  • This event is part of the four-part webinar series Pandemics and Plagues in Antiquity. The series is free and open to the public, registration is required. Visit http://brown.edu/go/AncientPandemics for more information.

    Andrew Wilson is Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire in the Faculty of Classics and a Fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford. Professor Wilson’s research interests include the economy of the Roman Empire, ancient technology, ancient water supply and usage, Roman North Africa and archaeological field survey. He co-directs, with Alan Bowman, the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OxREP) and edits the Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy series with Oxford University Press. He also co-directs the Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire project with Chris Howgego. He also leads, together with Bob Bewley, Graham Philip, and David Mattingly, the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) Project, using satellite imagery to assess threats to archaeological sites. He has excavated numerous sites in Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and Cyprus, and is currently involved in excavations at Aphrodisias (Turkey) and Utica (Tunisia).

    More Information Biology, Medicine, Public Health, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Social Sciences
  • This event is part of the four-part webinar series Pandemics and Plagues in Antiquity. The series is free and open to the public, registration is required. Visit http://brown.edu/go/AncientPandemics for more information.

    Kyle Harper is Professor of Classics and Letters and Provost Emeritus at The University of Oklahoma. Dr. Harper is a historian of the ancient world whose work has spanned economic, environmental, and social history. He is the author of three books Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425 (2011) which was awarded the James Henry Breasted Prize by the American Historical Association and the Outstanding Publication Award from the Classical Association of the Middle West and South; From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality (2013) which won the Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Historical Studies from the American Academy of Religion; and The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (2017) which has been translated into twelve languages. He is currently writing a global history of infectious disease.

    More Information Biology, Medicine, Public Health, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Social Sciences
  • Archaeologists and heritage professionals whose work overlays histories of colonialism, exploitation, collective violence, and genocide are increasingly aware that they cannot simply take refuge in prehistory to avoid troubling pasts; nor is it sufficient to merely acknowledge historical wrongs. And yet scholars often struggle to identify ways that archaeological and heritage work can make a meaningful impact. In this webinar, we explore how archaeology can not only identify the legacies of inequity, injustice, and violence that have shaped historical and contemporary communities, but also to open the possibility of redress for the continuing systemic inequities these legacies reveal (i.e. environmental racism, racialized disenfranchisement, heritage erasure). Panelists will discuss how they blend archaeology and heritage work with principles of redress and restorative justice.

    Panelists:
    Mary Elliott, Curator of Slavery, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
    Sada Mire, PhD, Director, Horn Heritage Organisation
    Kisha Supernant, PhD, Director, Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology, University of Alberta
    Michael Wilcox, PhD, Associate Professor, Stanford University

    Moderated by Margaret Bruchac, PhD, Coordinator, Native American & Indigenous Studies, University of Pennsylvania

    Free and open to the public. Register here: https://bit.ly/32QAiG4

    This event is hosted by the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and is part of a webinar series “From the Margins to the Mainstream: Black and Indigenous Futures in Archaeology” organized through a partnership with the Society of Black Archaeologists, Indigenous Archaeology Collective, Cornell Institute of Archaeology & Material Studies, SAPIENS, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

    More information about this webinar series can be found here: https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/black-and-indigenous-futures-in-archaeology/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion
  • Sep
    24
    Join Virtual EventInstructions: password: statue
    Recent movements by Black and Indigenous activists have highlighted the link between many modern monuments, colonialism, and white supremacy. Join Decolonization at Brown (DAB), the Public Art Committee, and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World as we host a town hall on monuments and statues at Brown on September 24th at 5:30pm EDT.
    Spurred by a proposal to restore and relocate the Caesar Augustus statue currently in front of the Ratty, we hope this town hall will be a place to explore questions related to the function & history of Brown’s monuments. We ask the following questions: What is the place of Roman statues on Indigenous land? How do monuments at Brown uphold a particular understanding of the University? Alongside a past and present of colonialism and institutional anti-Blackness, what does the presence, removal, or replacement of statues and monuments mean for Brown?
    All are welcome!
    More Information Arts, Performance, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion
  • Curious what fieldwork looks like without the field? Vaguely interested in archaeology and the myriad exciting forms it might take? Filled with burning questions about virtual research opportunities, what kinds of archaeological research “count”, or how to do archaeology from home?

    The DigDUG invites you to join Professors Felipe Rojas and Yannis Hamilakis as they lead a discussion on archaeological research opportunities for the summer. It will be extremely low-key, we promise, with brief accounts of faculty research this summer, discussion of ongoing opportunities for undergrads to get involved, and space for q&a to close. Even if you don’t have specific questions or a plan to do archaeologically-related work this summer, it’s always a great idea to hear more about potential opportunities and hang out with fellow archaeology enthusiasts!

    An awesome thing about archaeology is that even in precedented times so much of the discipline combines a range of skills and tools beyond actually going into the field. If this sounds at all interesting, come drop in!

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, International, Global Engagement, Research, Student Clubs, Organizations & Activities
  • May
    24
    Virtual
    1:00pm

    Virtual Degree Conferral Ceremonies

    degree.brown.edu

    Please join us in celebration as we confer Brown University degrees at The Virtual Degree Conferral Ceremonies on Sunday, May 24, at 1 p.m. EDT.

    The ceremonies will feature remarks from University leaders and moments of celebration shared on social media with the graduates and well-wishers from around the world.

    Post photos and videos to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter using the hashtags #Brown2020 and #BrownU to help us recognize this important milestone as we gather virtually.

    Questions can be directed to the Office of University Event & Conference Services at [email protected]

    More Information Academic Calendar, University Dates & Events
  • Every Wednesday this summer, take a peek into the Joukowsky Institute’s Virtual Vault to see some of the archaeological objects stored and studied at Brown University! A team of curators and archaeologists, convened by the Joukowsky Institute, will be posting a new object every week – from lithics to lekythoi,shabtis to sherds – so you can explore Brown’s archaeological collections from wherever you are.

    Find the Virtual Vault on the Archaeology at Brown blog, a website highlighting programming and events organized by archaeologists in Brown University’s Departments of Anthropology, Classics, Egyptology and Assyriology, and History of Art and Architecture, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, and Program in Early Cultures.

    Visit https://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/category/virtual-vault/ to see past entries and to read new updates every week!

    More Information Arts, Performance, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Research, Teaching & Learning
  • Join Virtual EventInstructions: ArchThesis

    Senior concentrators in Archaeology and the Ancient World will give 10-minute presentations on their thesis research.

    Kelley Tackett
     Constructed Pasts and the Contested Present in Petra Archaeological Park

    Ingrid Mader
    Designing and Implementing Ethical Archaeogenetic Research Across Latin American Indigenous Communities: Engaged Scholarship in Molecular Anthropology

    Aliosha Bielenberg
    How Do We Make A World? Hannah Arendt, the Khoi-San, and the Problems of Alterity and Humanism

    This event is open to the public, and all are welcome!

    Watch a video of the presentations here: 2020 Archaeology Senior Thesis Presentations

    More Information 
  • Apr
    3

    Sarah Cahlan, Video Editor for the Fact Checker at The Washington Post, will be screening and discussing her film, TheirStory. The film focuses on archaeologists who are pushing back against a male-centered narrative of our history, and in doing so complicating our assumptions of gender and our understandings of the past.

    TheirStory takes viewers on an eye-opening journey through archival footage, animations and interviews to ask how a reconfiguring of past gender perceptions – such as man the hunter and woman the gatherer - can radically change the ingrained beliefs we hold about who we are and where we come from. ​

    Sarah Cahlan edits and produces videos for the Fact Checker at The Washington Post. Before coming to The Post, she directed a short documentary about the historical inaccuracies of gender roles. As an NBC/NAHJ fellow, she reported, produced and wrote stories about science, tech and Latino culture. Cahlan has also covered health and the environment in California.

    More Information Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion
  • Dr. Rocco Palermo is a Researcher and VENI Grant Recipient at the University of Groningen. His research interests focus on several aspects of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. In particular he concentrates on the settlement patterns, the material culture and the imperial impact of the Seleucid period in Mesopotamia and on the archaeology of the Roman eastern frontier in Syria and Mesopotamia. Other interests include the archaeology of ancient territorial Empires, the landscape archaeology of the Near East and the role of pottery in the archaeological record.

    He has conducted fieldwork in Italy, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq and is currently Associate Director of the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (Harvard University) and a member of the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project (University of Udine), both projects operating in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Since 2019 he has also been in charge of the excavation of the Hellenistic period level at the site of Tell Aliawa (Iraqi Kurdistan) under the direction of Prof. Luca Peyronel (University of Milan, Italy).

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities
  • Mar
    30
    11:00am - 12:00pm

    Presentation of Dissertation Research by Laurel Darcy Hackley (JIAAW)

    https://brown.zoom.us/j/782338749

    Laurel Darcy Hackley, a doctoral candidate in Archaeology and the Ancient World, will present her dissertation, “Social Landscapes of the Egyptian Deserts, 3000-1100 BCE”, in a public lecture via Zoom. All are welcome.

    Watch a video of the presentation here: L. Darcy Hackley: Social Landscapes of the Egyptian Deserts, 3000-1100 BCE

    More Information 
  • Kristian Kabuay is a Filipino-American artist and activist. His work critically interrogates calligraphy and graffiti, both indigenous to the Philippines and from elsewhere, to explore larger themes of colonialism and cultural heritage. Kristian’s talk will focus on Baybayin, a pre-Hispanic Filipino script, and will address the relationship between academic study of material culture and precolonial worlds, artistic practice, and decolonial activism.

    Free and open to the public.

    Sponsored by the Southeast Asian Studies Initiative and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.

    More Information Arts, Performance, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion
  • Kathleen Forste, a PhD candidate in Archaeology at Boston University, will be discussing her research in an informal talk. Pizza and soda will be provided, or feel free to bring a lunch.

    For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2019/11/21/brown-bag-talks-for-spring-2020/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities
  • Mar
    18

    The Second Student-Led Symposium on John Wesley Gilbert (1864-1923)
    Research conducted and presented by students of MGRK 1220: Decolonizing Classical Antiquity, taught by Professor Yannis Hamilakis

    Join us to learn and explore the life and legacy of the first African American to receive a graduate degree at Brown University. A scholar of Classics, archaeology, and religion, and an educator, John Wesley Gilbert is also considered the first African American archaeologist.

    Introductory Remarks by Professor Yannis Hamilakis

    “Thou art not a Christian, but a Ciceronian”: Christianity and Classical Heritage in the Life of John Wesley Gilbert
    Christopher Packs

    John Wesley Gilbert and Paine College: An Examination of the Institution’s Foundation and Establishment
    Elena Panzitta

    Racial Colorblindness in the Institutions of Classics
    Mia Mitchell

    More Information 
  • The State of the Field 2020: Archaeology of the Levant, scheduled for March 13-14, 2020, has been postponed until Fall 2020. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and will circulate the new schedule as soon as it is confirmed.

    The Levant, a loosely defined region encompassing the modern countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Cyprus, is rich in archaeology and history. The region has been central to the discipline of archaeology since the nineteenth century, and arguably even earlier. A long history of colonial rule, political and religious differences, academic specializations and passions, stark financial inequalities and war continue to inform and limit dialogue not only among local and foreign archaeologists working there, but also among scholars, local communities, government officials, and other stakeholders. Aware of the ancient and modern importance of the region, the peculiar challenges it poses, the possibilities for collaboration, and the need for creative perspectives, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University will host a conference in March 2020 dedicated to addressing these unique aspects of the Levant through constructive discussion of:

    • Current directions, critical trends and lacunae in archaeological research
    • Museum, archival studies, and other investigations that rely primarily on archaeological legacy data
    • The effects of colonial rule, modern geopolitics, fluctuating national boundaries, war, and migration, among many other factors on the practice and interpretations of archaeological work in the region.

    The event is part of the “State of the Field” conference series, a yearly meeting which aims to highlight and reflect upon specific thematic or regional archaeological topics within a community of its scholars.

    Free and open to the public. No pre-registration necessary.

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Research
  • Catherine Scott, a Lecturer in University Writing at Brandeis University, will be discussing her research in an informal talk. Pizza and soda will be provided, or feel free to bring a lunch.

    For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2019/11/21/brown-bag-talks-for-spring-2020/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities
  • Alex Marko, Dan Plekhov, and Miriam Rothenberg, doctoral candidates in Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, will be discussing their research on God’s Little Acre in Newport, RI in an informal talk. Pizza and soda will be provided, or feel free to bring a lunch.

    For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2019/11/21/brown-bag-talks-for-spring-2020/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities
  • Talk about what archaeological fieldwork is really like (and how to find funding) with faculty, grad students, and other undergrads. Faculty who can take undergrads on their field projects this summer will be present to answer your questions about how to get involved!

    Sponsored by the Archaeological Department Undergraduate Group

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Student Clubs, Organizations & Activities
  • Contemporary discourses of denial in Turkey do not reject forensic archaeology; in fact, state agents ostensibly encourage ‘objective scientific inquiry’ against ‘biased accusations of genocide.’ In this talk, I analyze the first court-ordered exhumation of a mass grave in Dersim, a Kurdish Alevi city in Turkey’s east and Kurdistan’s north, which has suffered waves of state violence since the 1930s. The exhumation, analysis, and reburial of human remains took place in the contradictory contexts of Turkey’s short-lived peace and reconciliation process in 2015. In the end, the medico-legal discourse of truth crafted a new layer of denial, yielding factual fragments that could not be translated into the ‘moral truth’ of genocide. Meanwhile, the interlocutors of Dersim’s memory started to borrow from the archaeological toolkit themselves, to engage more intimately and reflexively with conflict heritage.

    Hande Sarikuzu is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Binghamton University.

    More Information Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement
  • Feb
    20
    5:00pm - 8:00pm

    Exhibition Opening: Transient Matter

    Friedman Hall, Rm 102
    The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology is proud to announce our next exhibit installation, opening February 20th, 2020, Transient Matter: Assemblages of Migration in the Mediterranean.
        
    Transient Matter: Assemblages of Migration in the Mediterranean brings the realities, perils, and the humanity of migrations and border-crossings to the Haffenreffer Museum through an exhibition of things discarded by migrants who crossed the Aegean to reach Greece, artwork created by migrants in camps and detention centers once there, and photographs and videos produced by the curators…  
     

    This is a two-part event, beginning with the Curator’s Talk at 5 PM in Friedman Hall, followed by the Reception at 6 PM at the Haffenreffer Museum Gallery at Manning Hall. Both the Talk and Reception are open and free to the public, supported by generous donation to the Friends of the Haffenreffer Museum and the Decolonial Initiative at Brown University.    

    Transient Matter - Curators’ Talk
    Feb. 20, 2020 | 5 PM - 6 PM 
    Friedman Hall, Room 102
    Discuss the people, matter, and research behind the exhibition with the curatorial team, including Yannis Hamilakis, L. Darcy Hackley, Sherena Razek, and Ayşe Şanlı. 

    Transient Matter - Opening Reception

    Feb. 20, 2020 | 6 PM - 8 PM
    Manning Hall Gallery
    21 Prospect Street, Providence RI 
    Celebrate this first look at the new exhibition alongside museum staff and curators. 
       
    Content Warning: The content of this exhibition may be emotionally stressful or upsetting for some visitors, including mentions of war and violence, political, religious, or gender-based persecution, racism, loss, and death.
    More Information Government, Public & International Affairs, Haffenreffer Exhibition, History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities, Identity, Culture, Inclusion, International, Global Engagement, Social Sciences
  • Débora Leonel Soares, a PhD candidate at the University of São Paulo and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, will be discussing her research in an informal talk. Pizza and soda will be provided, or feel free to bring a lunch.

    For a full list of Archaeology Brown Bag talks, please visit http://blogs.brown.edu/archaeology/2019/11/21/brown-bag-talks-for-spring-2020/

    More Information History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Humanities