First-Year Research Seminar: Archaeology and Nationalism

Catalog description

Modern nations frequently seek an origin in the peoples and civilizations that came before. They often gain from these predecessors—in some ways of thinking, their ancestors—a sense of a long-standing historical and cultural identity, and use the past to shape that nation’s relationships to the landscape, to cultural traditions, and even to other nations. Archaeology, including the excavation, preservation, and interpretation of monuments and artefacts, often plays an active part in the construction of these national pasts, contributing to national narratives that claim long, continuous cultural histories, that delineate territory, that present a golden age and the promise of its return, or that give the members of the national community cause to come together. This course investigates the ways in which the archaeological remains have been employed in the shaping of modern national identities. In class, our discussions may focus on Greece, Egypt, Iran, China, and the U.S. For their projects, students are invited to apply the questions and problems we encounter in class to a context of interest to them.