Sarah Tarlow

(Professor Emerita of Historical Archaeology at the University of Leicester, UK)

“Archaeology, Life Writing and Radical Honesty”

Friday, November 7, 4:10 PM – 6:10 PM

951 Schermerhorn Extension

Abstract

Like many people in the academic world, I have been experimenting with ways of writing that are quite different from the usual texts we produce. Doing other kinds of writing means paying attention to other aspects of how and what we communicate. In the case of memoir/ life writing, that might mean that we give up the guarantee of authenticity and authority that comes from citing extensive references and using a specialised register, and depend more on emotional and experiential points of connection, and the creative use of language to evoke whatever you want to convey.

Combining life writing with academic expertise is a rare occasion where a writer can be their full self, integrating professional and personal stories and views.

In this talk I will argue that what distinguishes the best life writing is radical honesty. Furthermore, the principles of radical honesty applied back to our academic writing and, indeed, to our other endeavours, result in more innovative, exciting, critical and transformative work. Radical honesty requires the writer to interrogate the self deeply, to evaluate assumptions, and root out platitudes and clichés, even when to do so invites criticism, ridicule, or impediments to career progression.

I will discuss and read from my own memoir, The Archaeology of Loss, which combines my expertise as an archaeologist specialising in the archaeology of death and burial, with my personal experience of being a long-term carer for my ill husband, and my responses to his decision to end his own life. Writing this book changed my perspective on myself, on archaeological writing and on what it might mean to be a public anthropologist.

Bio

Sarah Tarlow is Professor Emerita of Historical Archaeology at the University of Leicester, UK. She has published more than 10 academic books on topics including the archaeology of death, historical archaeology in Britain and Ireland, the archaeology of the body and archaeological ethics. In 2023, her memoir The Archaeology of Loss received the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Public Anthropology award.