Th 4:00-6:20 (The so-called Q-hour) Joukowsky Institute Seminar Room 203
Instructor: Ömür Harmansah (Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology)
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 11-12 am. (Or by appointment) Office: Joukowsky Institute (70 Waterman St.) Room 202 E-mail: Omur_Harmansah@brown.edu Tel: 401-863-6411

Course description

This course explores how archaeologists make sense of the world from artifacts of the past. Human practices and cultural processes resonate, live within the material traces that surround us in our everyday life. How do archaeologists re-imagine these traces as residues of real people in history rather than imaginary beings and ghosts? How do archaeologists place material objects and spaces in the context of human practices, cultural processes and long-term history? In short, we will read, think and write about archaeological ways of thinking about the world.

Archaeology, as a modern discipline, investigates the past through the study of its material remains. This material record is documented and interpreted through various intellectual activities from fieldwork to publication. But archaeologists are usually torn between their work in the field (digging, surveying, drawing, travelling, taking notes) and in their academic environment (processing data, interpreting, publishing). Throughout the semester we will spend some thought on this divided life between the field and discourse, and explore some of the novel attempts have been made to bridge them... Read the full Course Description...

Course Preview Page ~ Weekly Schedule ~ Course Readings ~ Requirements ~ Assignments ~ Discussion ~ Bibliography

Books at the Bookstore

There will be occasional reading assignments from various sections of these books but the students are expected to start reading them right away as the semester starts and our class discussions will often touch upon them. I highly recommend acquiring copies of Hodder and Hutson, and Trigger, while Thomas and Lucas are optional. Copies of all of these books will be on Rock Reserve as well.

• Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson; 2004. Reading the past: current approaches to interpretation in archaeology. 3rd edition. Cambridge University Press.
• Bruce Trigger; 2006. A history of archaeological thought. 2 edition. Cambridge University Press.
• Julian Thomas; 2004. Archaeology and modernity. Routledge: London
• Gavin Lucas; 2000. Critical Approaches to Fieldwork: Contemporary and Historical Fieldwork. Routledge: London. (I was notified that the bookstore could not acquire this book).

Announcements, updates, links

• Opinion Editorial Piece "The endangered future of the past" by Ömür Harmansah and Christopher Witmore. International Herald Tribune, 21 December 2007.

• Publications of John Bintliff. All accessible in pdfs.