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Finding symmetry? Archaeology, Objects, and Posthumanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2021

Christopher Witmore
Christopher Witmore*
Affiliation:
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures Texas Tech University CMLL Building 2906 18th St Lubbock, TX79409USA Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Well before the turn of the century, it had become clear that archaeology's aspiration to study the past was, true to the modern project, a pretext for a deeper desire to fabricate its objects. Material culture, materiality, the material past, material residues, heritage—the objects of interpretive (post-processual) archaeology could only be characterized as a continuation of this modern project. While finding symmetry was tied to an upheaval from this mode of disciplinary production, it may now be characterized as one cue among others in more agile archaeological theory. After briefly contrasting archaeological thought before and after the turn of the century, this article sketches out some of the core features of an object-oriented approach to things, including symmetry, irreduction, emergent causality, and strangeness, among others. It then outlines how, by finding our way alongside things, we might aspire to ever more creative work with archaeological objects and their pasts. Finally, it closes with a few words on Posthumanism.

Type
Special Section: Debating Posthumanism in Archaeology
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 477 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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