Course description
Writing is rarely considered an archaeological methodology. Yet, writing is probably the method most widely used by archaeologists. Whether as a means of documentation, interpretation, communication or activist engagement, writing is used in widely varied ways, at different stages of the research process and with a variety of objectives in mind. Text is employed to store data – or rather, text is primary data – and is used to interpret and communicate findings and visions of pasts in various forms to diverse audiences. Considering the wealth of texts produced in archaeology, the richness of ways in which this is done, and the struggles most archaeologists experience with text production, it is peculiar how little thought has been given to writing and genre as method. Responding to this disparity the aim of this course is to ask:
- How can we as archaeologists think (and think creatively) of writing as part of our methodological approach to material pasts and presents?
- Moreover, what does it mean to think of writing as a particularly archaeological methodology?
Through reflections on these questions and through direct writing exercises the aim of this course is to assist participants in moving from an understanding of text as inert and as a neutral storage of data and information towards an understanding of writing as an active tool for interpretation and dialogue with pasts and presents. In other words, we encourage participants to think creatively about writing as method and about how different forms of archaeological writing can be employed beyond description and documentation. For example, how archaeological storytelling can be used to address contemporary challenges such as climate change, sustainability, social justice and decolonization. How can archaeological stories: nurture dialogues about environmental issues and sustainable futures?; lend voice to people deprived of their past and identity?; offer perspectives in negotiations about difficult pasts?; contribute to multivocality in diverse presents?; be a vehicle in strives towards social justice? And, what kind of writing is needed in these contexts?
Text and writing in current archaeology
One may ask, however, what does a concern with text and writing have to do with archaeology at present? While text as method has been undersold in archaeological debate, text as concept and “metaphor” has been central in archaeological theory through the last decades. Post-processualism – tellingly also referred to as the linguistic or discursive turn – was strongly influenced by theories originating in linguistics and concepts such as discourse, text, semiotics, signs and signifiers became part of the lingua franca of archaeological writing. Derrida’s claim that “nothing exists outside the text” was taken at face value and the archaeological canon of the 90s clearly expresses the general understanding that also material culture could or even should be read as text – see for example Hodder’s Reading the Past, Tilley’s Material Culture as Text and Olsen’s Mellom ting og text. One might claim, as later criticized by symmetrical archaeologists, that literally every-thing was reduced to symbols and semiotics. With post-processualism firmly in place (or even normalized) an engagement with text, discourse and language may therefore seem somewhat regressive and outdated, or what?
Putting to rest the various metaphors referring to text and reading, writing is still an actual tool employed in archaeology at present. Moreover, focusing rather on the political and ethical lessons learned through post-processualism, and not least through its feminist arm, language and text are (as any tools) not innocent phenomena – see for example, Spector’s What This Awl Means, and Joyce and colleague’s The Languages of Archaeology. Thinking of text as method and of genre and narration as techniques actively employed in order to communicate and validate interpretations of the past, brings to the fore the politics of text and language in academia. In other words, it matters how interpretations become articulated and “sold”. Or, as Marylin Strathern and Donna Haraway have argued, it matters what stories are used to tell other stories. Just like knowledge is situated, so is text. Aarchaeological texts are not innocent or inate “mediums”. Rather, as argued by McLuhan, the medium is the message – or, the message and the medium are co-dependent.
Being aware of how we use text, and the ethics and politics involved in written output, is of great concern. This is not least the case at present, when claims for a more multivocal past become ever louder and aims to decolonize academia, archaeology and museums are foregrounded. How is multivocality to be realized if not through a concrete concern for language and text as method? And how can decolonization materialize without a rethinking of the politics and colonial structures of academic language?
Topics and questions
This course will reflect on these questions and encourage participants to think critically about the texts and languages they hear, read and use through their archaeological projects. Participants will submit a short text in advance of the course, to be pre-circulated. They will also work actively with texts and experimental writing during the course days. The course is aimed at graduate students of archaeology and heritage studies, and accommodates projects of all time periods and thematic perspectives. Topics and questions addressed may include, for example:
- How do we tell a good story? Or, how do we narrate interpretations of the past?
- Why is archaeology an important “storyteller” at present? What archaeological stories are of significance and why?
- Challenges relating to subjectivity vs. objectivity and situated storytelling, including first person writing.
- Challenges and means related to reaching different audiences through research output.
- Challenges related to combining different archaeological languages/genres, e.g. those of natural sciences vs. those of the humanities.
- Questions related to the ethics and politics of text/language and critique related to post- and decolonial issues and aims.
- Challenges related to multivocality, the expression of different voices, of silence and the silenced.
- Questions concerning involvement and how much care/emotion is “appropriate” in academic research.
- Challenges related to identifying and critiquing authorized discourses.
- Explorations of “alternative” modes of writing/communicating research and the limits/potentials of academic output (i.e. how do we balance between fact and fiction or data and interpretation?)
- Visualization, photography and mapping as forms of writing and communication.
- Writing as/and archaeological activism.
Lecturers
- Thora Petursdottir, University of Oslo
- Katherine Burlingame, University of Oslo
- Tim Flohr Sørensen, University of Copenhagen
- Nick Shepherd, Aarhus University
- Uzma Z Rizvi, Pratt Institute
Course organizers
- Thora Petursdottir, University of Oslo
- Katherine Burlingame, University of Oslo
- Administrative contact: Oliver Reiersen (oliver.reiersen@iakh.uio.no)
Course Work
The course will comprise both seminars and lectures. Prior to the course, each PhD Fellow will prepare a paper (7-10 pages, Times New Roman 12, spacing 1,5) addressing their research project in relation to the course theme and reading lists. All the papers will be pre-circulated within the group.
During the course, each paper will be allotted approximately 45 minutes, beginning with a 15-minute summary and presentation by the paper author. Another PhD Fellow, assigned beforehand, will serve as a discussant and provide comments for roughly 10 minutes. Following this, the assigned discussant will facilitate and chair an open discussion on the paper for approximately 20 minutes.
The participating lecturers will each deliver a keynote lecture during the course and also actively engage in discussions of the PhD Fellow's submitted papers. The PhD participants are expected to read the literature to each keynote lecture, approximate 1000 pages in total. The seminar days will be thoughtfully structured to provide sufficient time for stimulating debates, networking opportunities, and a field trip to a destination pertinent to the course topic.
Deadlines
- Application deadline: 1 November 2024
- Paper submission deadline: 14 January 2025
- PhD discussants will be appointed by 18 February 2025
Credits
- 5 ECTS
Application
10 participants will be accepted for the course after the deadline.
Location, travel and costs
Dialogues with the past (DIALPAST) will finance and arrange accommodation, a welcome dinner, and supply lunch during the course week for all participating PhD candidates who are part of the Dialogues with the Past Network. NB: Two and two PhD students will be accommodated in twin rooms.
The PhD candidates will have to arrange and finance travel to and within Oslo, as well as dinners, during the course dates (except for the welcome dinner). If you are in the DIALPAST network and do not have travel funding to cover these costs, please get in touch with oliver.reiersen@iakh.uio.no.
Inquiries about practical matters regarding course organisation should also be sent to oliver.reiersen@iakh.uio.no.