This event is over.
Event Details:
Lunch Club provides affiliates of the Stanford Archaeology Center with a community-oriented forum for engagement with current issues in archaeology. On December 4, 2024 we will host Dr. Anne Chen from Bard College.
Abstract:
Blockbuster early “Big Dig” excavations, like those initiated at Dura-Europos in mandate-era Syria, bear a complex legacy. On the one hand, the finds uncovered in such expeditions have populated textbooks and museum collections, and productively shaped questions and debates in a number of humanities disciplines over the last century. On the other hand, imbalances of power and privilege at the time of excavation have had long-lasting repercussions not only with regard to who has access to the physical and intellectual products of such expeditions, but also whose perspectives are reflected in the grand narratives about scientific exploration and the interpretation of the ancient past. This talk introduces the work of the International [Digital] Dura-Europos Archive (IDEA), a major initiative guided by the ambition that new digital methods can transform colonially-entangled collections of artifacts and archives into intergenerational and intercultural learning laboratories where students, professionals, and stakeholder communities worldwide can grapple together more inclusively with the unintended legacies (ie. inequities in access, epistemic biases) of archaeology’s problematic past.