Archaeology has been an important source of metaphors for some of
the key intellectuals of the 20th century: Sigmund Freud, Walter
Benjamin, Alois Riegl and Michel Foucault, amongst many others.
However, this power has also turned against archaeology, because
the discipline has been dealt with perfunctorily as a mere provider
of metaphors that other intellectuals have exploited. Scholars from
different fields continue to explore areas in which archaeologists
have been working for over two centuries, with little or no
reference to the discipline. It seems that excavation, stratigraphy
or ruins only become important at a trans-disciplinary level when
people from outside archaeology pay attention to them and somehow
dematerialize them. Meanwhile, archaeologists have been usually
more interested in borrowing theories from other fields, rather
than in developing the theoretical potential of the same concepts
that other thinkers find so useful. The time is ripe for
archaeologists to address a wider audience and engage in
theoretical debates from a position of equality, not of
subalternity. Reclaiming Archaeology explores how archaeology can
be useful to rethink modernity's big issues, and more specifically
late modernity (broadly understood as the 20th and 21st centuries).
The book contains a series of original essays, not necessarily
following the conventional academic rules of archaeological writing
or thinking, allowing rhetoric to have its place in disclosing the
archaeological. In each of the four sections that constitute this
book (method, time, heritage and materiality), the contributors
deal with different archaeological tropes, such as excavation,
surface/depth, genealogy, ruins, fragments, repressed memories and
traces. They criticize their modernist implications and rework them
in creative ways, in order to show the power of archaeology not
just to understand the past, but also the present. Reclaiming
Archaeology includes essays from a diverse array of archaeologists
who have dealt in one way or another with modernity, including
scholars from non-Anglophone countries who have approached the
issue in original ways during recent years, as well as contributors
from other fields who engage in a creative dialogue with
archaeology and the work of archaeologists.
General
Imprint: |
Routledge
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
Archaeological Orientations |
Release date: |
November 2016 |
First published: |
2012 |
Editors: |
Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal
|
Dimensions: |
246 x 174 x 27mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
392 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-138-23857-2 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
Archaeology >
General
|
LSN: |
1-138-23857-0 |
Barcode: |
9781138238572 |
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