McTyeire Fireside Chat
McTyeire Fireside Chat: “An Archaeological Perspective on Social Problems of the Modern World”
By William Fowler,
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Monday, Nov. 13, 2017
7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
McTyeire Fireside Lounge
The modern world was born about 500 years ago with the first expansion of European imperial powers into the rest of the world. Modern-world archaeology, a specific approach in historical archaeology, explicitly investigates the post-1500 world through the lens of interconnectedness and interrelationships. The metaprocesses of modern-world archaeology – colonialism, capitalism, Eurocentrism, and racialization – are structurally complex, interconnected forces that operate on a global scale as a unified system of activity, practice, and procedure. These forces underlie most of the world’s social problems today. Modern-world archaeology seeks to understand and come to terms with colonialism, capitalism, Eurocentrism, and racialization in the present through the lens of the past rather than simply invoking the platitude that we must study the past to understand the present.
Contact: anja.bandas@vanderbilt.edu