NES 4620 - [Archaeology of Orientalism]

(crosslisted) ANTHR 4120, ARKEO 4120, CLASS 4760
(GHB) (HA-AS)

Fall. Not offered 2015-2016. 4 credits.

Co-meets with ANTHR 6120/ARKEO 6120/NES 6620.

L. Khatchadourian.

What is the relationship between archaeology and politics? What role has archaeology played in the making of “the East”? And how has material culture been implicated in the discourses that conjure the East into existence? This course probes the archaeology of Orientalism in two respects. Most immediately, it examines the attitudes that have shaped archaeologies of the Near East from the discipline’s imperialist beginnings to the present, considering several key tropes of the field (from “civilization” to “oriental despotism” and beyond). In another sense, our concern is the materiality of Orientalism, or the work of things in enabling various dispositions toward the Near East. We also consider Orientalism’s antipode, nationalism, examining some of the region’s indigenous archaeological approaches and the politics of archaeology today.