Friday, April 15, 2016
Session 3: Contemporary Encounters and Speculative Futures
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
In a particularly troubling academic climate that is witnessing departmental amalgamation and a relative dearth in full-time faculty hires, how does the discipline of archaeology envision its future? What is its role beyond the walls of the academy? Should archaeology be useful and, if so, for what purposes? This conference addresses archaeology’s potential role in contributing to pressing world problems including climate change, economic inequality, human rights, neocolonialism, and militarism.

This conference also seeks to address how futurity plays a role in how archaeologists confront the past in the present. Through a departure from linear time, this conference will explore alternative notions of time, material vestiges of the past in the present, and embodied experiences that transcend temporalities. If we accept that archaeology is a discipline about the present, how are we to think about time and futurity?
Session Participants:
O. Hugo Benavides (Fordham University)
"History, Capitalism, and Postcolonial Identities: An Archaeology of the Future"
Christopher Witmore (Texas Tech University)
"Hypanthros: How Might Archaeologists Approach that which is in Excess of Monstrosity?"
Uzma Rizvi (Pratt University)
"Future Participle: Towards a Speculative Archaeology"
**Some images used by presenters are copyrighted materials NOT owned by individual presenters. In these cases, images are depicted under the terms of fair use.