Session: #162

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
5. Theories and methods in archaeology: interactions between disciplines
Session format:
Regular session

Title & Content

Title:
Medieval Objects, Material Culture Approaches, and Cross-Disciplinary Dialogues
Content:
Archaeologists and historians are invited to present papers that focus on a single object from the long Middle Ages (which could be, for example, a pot, a piece of metalwork, a building, or a landscape feature –– whether found in an excavation, a museum collection, or in a text) which thinks through its potential meanings as well as the interpretive challenges and uses of that object and the ways different disciplinary approaches to that object help us understand past lifeworlds. The session provides a space for historians and archaeologists to have a serious discussion about the ways our two disciplines think about material evidence, the interpretive moves we make, the problems that arise, and how, in the future, we might better combine our efforts. The goal of this session is to open a productive dialogue between historians and archaeologists as well as medievalists working across the whole of our thousand-year period.
Keywords:
material culture, Cross-Disciplinary, medieval, historical archaeology, history
Session associated with MERC:
yes
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:

Organisers

Main organiser:
Robin Fleming (United States) 1
Co-organisers:
Katherine French (United States) 2
Bonnie Effros (United Kingdom) 3
Affiliations:
1. Boston College
2. University of Michigan
3. University of Liverpool