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seminar

Yiannis Hamilakis “Material memory and the politics of freedom”

In this talk, I will reflect the role of materiality and of material memory in the constitution of temporal and other experiential regimes of modernity, while at the same time discussing
the role of disciplinary practices, and more specifically archaeology, in producing and sustaining such regimes. Given the colonial-cum-national and racial background of modern western/eurocentric epistemes, what is to be done with apparatuses such as archaeology? Moreover, is there an emancipatory potential in material traces, in remnants? I will argue that a reconfigured and reconstituted archaeology as a sensibility, as a set of relationships, and a strategy of mediation between different worlds can activate the liberating, haunting potential of matter, provided that it undergoes a series of paradigmatic shifts to do with chrono-politics, with sensorial politics, and the politics of story-telling and narration. I will illustrate these theses with a series of short case studies, from the 19th c. Athenian Acropolis to the toppling of confederate monuments in the USA, and the archaeology of contemporary migration in the Mediterranean.

bio

Yiannis Hamilakis is a Greek archaeologist and writer who is the Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies at Brown University. He specialises in archaeology of the prehistoric Aegean as well as historical archaeology, including ethnography and anthropology. His main research and teaching interests are the socio-politics of the past, the body and bodily senses, the archaeology of eating and drinking, the ontology and materiality of photography, archaeology and nationalism, archaeological ethnography, and critical pedagogy in archaeology. He is the author of more than 130 articles and has authored, edited, or co-edited eleven books, including a 2007 volume entitled The Nation and its Ruins: Archaeology, Antiquity and National Imagination in Modern Greece which won the Edmund Keeley 2009 Book Prize, awarded by the Modern Greek Studies Association, and was shortlisted for the 2007 Runciman Award.
His latest book (co-authored with Rafi Greenberg) is Archaeology, Nation, and Race: Confronting the Past, Decolonizing the Future in Greece and Israel (2022) which will come in Greek translation in late 2022 by Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou.

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bio

Yiannis Hamilakis is a Greek archaeologist and writer who is the Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies at Brown University. He specialises in archaeology of the prehistoric Aegean as well as historical archaeology, including ethnography and anthropology. His main research and teaching interests are the socio-politics of the past, the body and bodily senses, the archaeology of eating and drinking, the ontology and materiality of photography, archaeology and nationalism, archaeological ethnography, and critical pedagogy in archaeology. He is the author of more than 130 articles and has authored, edited, or co-edited eleven books, including a 2007 volume entitled The Nation and its Ruins: Archaeology, Antiquity and National Imagination in Modern Greece which won the Edmund Keeley 2009 Book Prize, awarded by the Modern Greek Studies Association, and was shortlisted for the 2007 Runciman Award.
His latest book (co-authored with Rafi Greenberg) is Archaeology, Nation, and Race: Confronting the Past, Decolonizing the Future in Greece and Israel (2022) which will come in Greek translation in late 2022 by Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou.

seminar video

Play Video

seminar video

Yiannis-Hamilakis-Cover

seminar

Yiannis Hamilakis “Material memory and the politics of freedom”

In this talk, I will reflect the role of materiality and of material memory in the constitution of temporal and other experiential regimes of modernity, while at the same time discussing
the role of disciplinary practices, and more specifically archaeology, in producing and sustaining such regimes. Given the colonial-cum-national and racial background of modern western/eurocentric epistemes, what is to be done with apparatuses such as archaeology? Moreover, is there an emancipatory potential in material traces, in remnants? I will argue that a reconfigured and reconstituted archaeology as a sensibility, as a set of relationships, and a strategy of mediation between different worlds can activate the liberating, haunting potential of matter, provided that it undergoes a series of paradigmatic shifts to do with chrono-politics, with sensorial politics, and the politics of story-telling and narration. I will illustrate these theses with a series of short case studies, from the 19th c. Athenian Acropolis to the toppling of confederate monuments in the USA, and the archaeology of contemporary migration in the Mediterranean.

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