61 - 70 of 118 results for: ARCHLGY

Latin America is vast in pre-colonial and colonial monuments. Past societies defined by archaeologists - Aztecas, Chavin, Chinchorro, Inka, Maya, Moche, Nazca, Tiahuanaco, among others - cohabit with Spanish colonial era structures and contemporary human settlements. Most studies on Latin America have focused on monuments, conservation and sustainability, overlooking economic and social struggles related to heritage use and management. Selecting certain case studies of famous archaeological sites, this class will explore the main characteristics of pre-Hispanic cultures from an archaeological perspective as well as from critical heritage studies. Currently, Latin American regions and entire states have adopted some of these 'archaeological cultures' and redefined them as their 'ancestors', adopting archaeological discourses in their daily lives. In addition to learning about these sites archaeologically, this class will analyze native communities´ claims, development projects, education narratives, nation-branding documentaries and marketing spots, memes, and other resources. The class will also consider the accelerated urban growth of these areas - a major feature of Latin American and global south countries - and the consequences for the development of heritage and its sustainable conservation in the Spanish-speaking Americas.

The course discusses the politics and practices of exhumation of individual and mass graves. The problem of exhumations will be considered as a distinct socio-political phenomenon characteristic of contemporary times and related to transitional justice. The course will offer analysis of case studies of political exhumations of victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, communist violence in Poland, the Rwandan genocide, the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Ukraine. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.

In recent decades, there has been a surge in archaeological research related to the African diaspora. What initially began as plantation archaeology and household archaeology to answer questions of African retention and identity, has now developed into an expansive sub-field that draws from collaborations with biological and cultural anthropologists. Similarly, methodological approaches have expanded to incorporate geospatial analysis, statistical analysis, and, more recently, maritime archaeological practices. The growth of African diaspora archaeology has thus pushed new methodological and theoretical considerations within the field of archaeology, and, inversely, added new insights in the field of Africana Studies. This course covers the thematic and methodological approaches associated with the historical archaeology of Africa and the African diaspora. Students interested in Africa and African diaspora studies, archaeology, slavery, and race should find this course useful. In addition to an overview of the development of African diaspora archaeology, students will be introduced to the major debates within the sub-field as well as its articulation with biological and socio-cultural anthropology. The course covers archaeological research throughout the wide geographical breadth of the African diaspora in Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, East, and West Africa, and the Indian Ocean. The themes covered include gender, race, identity, religion, and ethics in relation to the material record. Lectures will be supplemented with documentary films and other multimedia sources.

Today, the subject of decolonization is at the forefront of a wealth of scholarship as scholars, activists, and institutions grapple with the legacies of colonialism that are far from over. For Asian Americans, there are entanglements with colonialism in both the countries of their heritage and in the United States, complicating the scope of what it means to deal with colonialism. In this class we look at some of these relationships, thinking through the impact of various types of colonialism on history of Asian Americans, and their positionality alongside colonial structures in the United States. In doing so we look to unpack the nuances behind these interrelationships and the murky overlapping and underdiscussed dynamics that they create. We start the quarter with a discussion of what settler colonialism is, and key discussions of its intersections with the Asian American experience that emerged with the publication of Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai'i. We will then move to read our first two books of the quarter which focus on the intersections of Asian American labor and Indigenous erasure from the construction of the transcontinental railroad to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. From here we will pivot towards the Pacific and look to two books which seek to understand Asian American involvement with US colonial projects, and the wake of wartime and post-war resettlement. These works look past the North American continent to consider the ways in which transnational connections and diasporas become entangled with settler colonial projects. Throughout the course, students will work to develop their writing in formulating a research paper that they will work on in steps.

In this course, we will explore the ways archaeology and disability relate to each other, including both the ways archaeologists interpret disability in the past and how ableism shapes the practice of archaeology in the present. We will examine a variety of theoretical frames drawn from Disability Studies and other disciplines and consider how they can be usefully applied to archaeology. Case studies from a variety of geographic and temporal contexts will provide the basis for imagining an anti-ableist archaeology. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to: 1. Articulate several major ideas from disability studies and apply them to archaeological case studies; 2. Explain how disability studies and disabled self-advocates are reshaping the practice of archaeology; 3. Demonstrate improvement in the research and writing skills that they have chosen to develop through the flexible assignment structure of the course.

Situated in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily has for millennia represented a cultural crossroads and hub for the movement of peoples, objects, and ideas. Much of the island's history is reflected in sites and artifacts of maritime life: ancient ports and shipwrecked cargos; traditions and tools of marine resource exploitation; and boats that moved sailors, traders, warriors, fishermen, and displaced peoples across the ages. This course focuses on theoretical and practical engagement with the field, laboratory, and digital methods used by archaeologists to record and understand Sicily's deep cultural heritage along and under the sea. It aims to prepare students for maritime archaeological work and is a prerequisite for participation in the overseas summer field school in Sicily.

This course explores controversial artworks and artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum which have been historically deemed as "erotic" and "pornographic," from wall paintings displaying sexual intercourse to ornaments in the shape of winged phalluses. Students learn about the early excavations of this material, the invention of the word "pornography," and the history of the "Secret Cabinet" in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, where items deemed too sensitive for the public eye were locked away for decades in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through this, we consider and engage with our own changing societal values surrounding such themes and objects. Students also learn and engage with multiple methodological and theoretical approaches that have been used to analyze "erotic" wall paintings and artifacts, including but not limited to psychoanalysis, "male gaze" theory, queer theory, and master-slave narratives.

In this course, we will explore the university campus as a material and political space, drawing on research from historical archaeology and allied disciplines. We will examine the unequal and unjust histories of U.S. university campuses, including how they have been implicated in historical colonialism and slavery, how they continue to be enmeshed in a variety of forms of social inequality, and how they can be spaces of transformative social change. We will also get glimpses into Stanford's past with a campus archaeologist and the archaeology collections curator. This course will be introductory level/general education, with no prerequisites.

The contemporary world is full of stuff: commodities, trash, pollution, ruins of defunct infrastructures, discarded from the ongoing construction of new infrastructures, and so on. Archaeology has long analyzed such materials to understand the past. This class explores a recent move in archaeology to use the same tools to understand the contemporary era. What can we learn about ourselves by asking archaeological questions of the present, and applying archaeological techniques to the detritus of contemporary life?