Americana, by Christopher Smith, Attribution (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Archaeology interprets material culture – things, assemblages, and contexts – to tell stories about the cultures that created them, and the people that used them. This course will explore the ways in which we use material evidence to interpret and understand the world around us – our own contemporary culture.
This web page serves as our digital trace of the engagement with this stuff – this materiality. Each tab takes you to a theme for photo essays on the themes of the class where the students express themselves through the documentation and reflection on things, assemblages, and space.
We will examine primary and secondary sources and examine how we know what we know about the world around us. We will ask ourselves how we evaluate what we see. How we judge and assess. Through a critical analysis of the material world around us, this blog invites you to think critically about your assumptions and to always analyze the world around you to reveal the many stories it tells about class, gender, race, social change, and lived experience.