september, 2024

18sep2:10 pm- 4:00 pmYannis Hamilakis on "Archaeology as a Hauntology of Remains"

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Event Details

Department of Anthropology Boas Seminar
 
Yannis Hamilakis
Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies
Brown University
Archaeology as a Hauntology of Remains
Wednesday 18th September
2.10pm -4pm
Scheps Seminar Room
457 Schermerhorn Ext
 
 

Abstract: 

In a forthcoming publication, I am proposing a hauntological archaeology, not as a sub-discipline, a subfield or a method but as an affect, as a way of allowing or rather enabling material remains to haunt us. This is a positively valued feeling, an unsettling but ethically grounded position that renders visible the threads that connect the ontological, the epistemic, and the political. The building blocks for this hauntological archaeology are the concept of remains, central to all archaeology and yet strangely untheorized, especially in terms of its temporal effects; and the concept of sensoriality, the ability of material remains to engender sensorial, mnemonic, and affective experiences, to contribute to the creation of a space in-between, a relational sensorial field. In this talk, I will illustrate some of the elements of this archaeology by presenting recent work on contemporary migration carried out on the island of Lesvos. Much of my discussion will focus on the migrant camp of Moria, the largest refugee camp/”reception” facility in Europe which was destroyed by fire in September 2020. I will report on recent fieldwork in this camp, re-collecting the remnants of the racialized assemblage of the border, a border which has been construed as a buffer zone through centuries-old, crypto-colonizing processes.
 
Bio: Yannis Hamilakis is Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies at Brown University. He researches and writes on sensorial archaeology, on temporality, on the links between archeology, nationalism and colonialism, on archaeological ethnography, on classical receptions, and on the archaeology of contemporary migration. He co-directs the Koutroulou Magoula Archaeology and Archaeological Ethnography Project centered around the excavation of an important Neolithic site in Thessaly, and has been engaging in a contemporary archaeology project on Lesvos, studying undocumented migration. His most recent book is “Archaeology, Nation, and Race: Confronting the Past, Decolonizing the Future in Greece and Israel” (co-authored with Rafi Greenberg).

Time

(Wednesday) 2:10 pm - 4:00 pm

Location

Columbia University, 457 Schermerhorn Extension

  1200 Amsterdam Ave.
MC 5523
New York, NY 10027
  (212) 854-1390

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