The archaeology of things from the early modern, modern and contemporary world
Friday 16 – Sunday 18 October 2009, Keble College, Oxford University
FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER
2pm-5.30pm Session 1: Households, Home and Leisure (Chair: Dan Hicks)
2pm Welcome
2.05pm Tom Fisher (Nottingham Trent University) Hoarding, reusing, and disposing: the home as a repository for transient objects
2.20pm Sefryn Penrose (University of Oxford) Treadmills: an archaeology of postindustrial physicality at work and in the gym
2.35pm Bob Ruffle (Worcester University) ‘Earthen Ware and other old things’: The (in)significance of pottery in the early modern household
2.50pm Sarah May (English Heritage) The Material Culture of the cult of the Infant (or why my loft is full)
3.05pm Rodney Harrison (Open University) Materialising experience – archaeological approaches to theming and the experience economy
3.20pm Tea
3.50pm Mike Pearson (University of Aberystwyth) All that remains: an imperfect archaeology of the Mickery Theatre, Amsterdam
4.05pm Carolyn White (University of Nevada, Reno) The Materiality of Burning Man
4.20pm Lisa Hill (University of Oxford) Rediscovering the great outdoors: campsite archaeology
4.35pm Titta Kallio-Seppä, Tiina Kuokkanen, Anna-Kaisa Puputti, Timo Ylimaunu, Risto Nurmi (University of Oulu) & James Symonds (University of Sheffield) Dogs, table cloths, curtains, and gossip mirrors: engendering household spaces in early modern Finland
4.50pm-5.30pm
Discussion (Chair: Mary Beaudry, Boston University)
5.30pm: walk from Keble to Pitt Rivers Museum (off South Parks Road – onto Robinson Close – South Door of Pitt Rivers Museum)
6pm (sharp) Keynote paper by Nick Shepherd (University of Cape Town) Pitt Rivers Museum
Followed by wine reception and opportunity to visit Pitt Rivers Museum (until 8pm)
SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER
9.30am-1pm Session 2: Assemblages & Manufacture (Chair: Laura McAtackney)
9.30am Jane Seiter (University of Bristol) Telling a story with compass and rule: the use and abuse of maps in historical archaeology
9.45am Chris Hewitson (University of Birmingham) The Workman Laid Down His Tools –the success and value of recording material remains in 20th century workshops
10.00am Chieh-fu Cheng (Academia Sinica Taipei) Dutch beads in Formosa? The glass bead transactions in the early Historical Period of Taiwan
10.15am Craig Cessford (Cambridge Archaeological Unit) Damn your creamware, local artefacts for local archaeologists
10.30 am Coffee
11 am Vesa-Pekka Herva & Risto Nurmi (University of Oulu) Coppery dreams: attitudes to copper and biographies of copper coins in early modern Sweden
11.15am Krysta Rysewski (Brown University) Design, Innovation and the archaeology of things
11.30am Martin Locock (National Library of Wales) A tale of two bricks: the Industrial Revolution explored
11.45am Discussion (Chair: James Symonds, Sheffield University)
12.45-1.45pm LUNCH (provided)
1.45pm-5.10pm Session 3: Archaeological Practices & Archaeological Knowledge (Chair: Mary Beaudry)
1.45pm Timothy Webmoor, University of Oxford Epistemography & archaeological assembling
2.05pm Christopher Witmore, Texas Tech University Archaeology & Pragmatology
2.20pm Matt Edgeworth, University of Leicester Towards an archaeology of contemporary scientific discovery
2.40pm Tea
3.10pm Chris Matthews (Hofstra University) Archaeology as artifact: addressing the modern materiality of American slavery
3.30pm Dan Hicks (University of Oxford) (with Laurie Wilkie, University of California Berkeley) Things as Events, Things as Effects
3.50pm Laurie Wilkie (University of California Berkeley) (with Dan Hicks, University of Oxford) Going About Things: a perspective from Manhattan
4.10pm Discussion (Chair: Chris Gosden, University of Oxford)
5.10pm Close
SUNDAY 18 OCTOBER
9.30am-12.30pm Session 4: Conflict & Postcolonialism (Chair: Brent Fortenberry)
9.30am Gunnar Maus (University of Bristol) The archaeology of cold war early warning sites: perceptions of Wasserkuppe, Germany
9.45am Tai-Lung Lu (National Taiwan University) An excavation on Fort Santo Domingo – a case study on historical archaeology of Taiwan
10.00am Gilly Carr (Cambridge University) Occupation artefacts: exploring the materiality of military occupation in the Channel Islands, 1940-45
10.15am John Chenoweth (University of California, Berkeley) Quakerism and the lack of ‘things’ in the Early Modern British Virgin Islands
10.30am Coffee
11am Wendy Whitby (University of Central Lancashire) Resistance or acculturation? Chumash Cache Caves and Colonial California
11.15am Ana Cristina Rodriguez Yilo (freelance commercial archaeologist in Anzoátegui State, Venezuela) & Alasdair Brooks (University of Leicester) Eating in English, speaking in Spanish – British transfer-printed ceramics in Venezuela
11.30am Sven Ouzman (University of Pretoria) An archaeology of graffiti in post-Apartheid South Africa
11.45am Discussion: (Chair, Laurie Wilkie, University of California, Berkeley)
12.45pm Concluding Comments Hedley Swain (Museum, Libraries and Archives Council)
1pm Close
