Subjects and narratives in archaeology

Includes bibliographical references and index.Edited by Ruth M. Van Dyke and Reinhard Bernbeck.Seeking to move beyond the customary limits of archaeological prose and representation, Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology presents archaeology in a variety of nontraditional formats. The volume demonstrates that visual art, creative nonfiction, archaeological fiction, video, drama, and other artistic pursuits have much to offer archaeological interpretation and analysis. Chapters in the volume are augmented by narrative, poetry, paintings, dialogues, online databases, videos, audio files, and slideshows. The work will be available in print and as an enhanced ebook that incorporates and showcases the multimedia elements in archaeological narrative. While exploring these new and not-so-new forms, the contributors discuss the boundaries and connections between empirical data and archaeological imagination. Both a critique and an experiment, Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology addresses the goals, advantages, and difficulties of alternative forms of archaeological representation. Exploring the idea that academically sound archaeology can be fun to create and read, the book takes a step beyond the boundaries of both traditional archaeology and traditional publishing.--Provided by publisher.Alternative Narratives and the Ethics of Representation: An Introduction / Ruth M. Van Dyke and Reinhard Bernbeck -- Creating Narratives of the Past as Recombinant Histories / Ruth Tringham -- Authoritative and Ethical Voices: From Diktat to the Demotic / Mark Pluciennik -- The Chacoan Past: Creative Representations and Sensory Engagements / Ruth M. Van Dyke -- Landscape: The Reservoir of the Unconscious / Phillip and Judy Tuwaletstiwa -- Archaeologists as Storytellers: The Docudrama / Mary and Adrian Praetzellis -- Constructive Imagination and the Elusive Past: Play Writing as Method / James G. Gibb -- The Archaeologist as Writer / Jonathan T. Thomas -- Eleven-Minutes-and-Forty Seconds in the Neolithic: Underneath Archaeological Time / Doug Bailey and Melanie Simpkin -- The Talking Potsherds: Archaeologists as Novelists / Sarah M. Nelson -- Limits of Archaeological Emplotments from the Perspective of Excavating Nazi Extermination Centers / Isaac Gilead -- From Imaginations of a Peopled Past to a Recognition of Past People / Reinhard Bernbeck -- Wrestling with Truth: Possibilities and Peril in Alternative Narrative Forms / Sarah Pollock