Bard Graduate Center (NY) Archaeological Encounters series (2021)
On 28 April, 2021 I made a short (20 minute) presentation “Do Baskets Speak? Creating Afterlives of an Archaeological Project at Neolithic Çatalhöyük” at the Bard Graduate Center (NY) Archaeological Encounters series. Right after me, Brian Boyd (Columbia University) presented ”Remains, Not “Ruins: Archival Afterlives in Palestine”. This was followed by a moderated conversation with invited colleagues and a Q&A with the public (there wasn’t much time for that). Everything was done through the Zoom platform. Originally in 2019, this presentation was conceived as a full blown onn-site visit to New York in which I would give an evening public lecture, and stay on for a seminar to graduate students a couple of days later. I was very much looking forward to a fun visit to New York.
However, the CoVid Pandemic intervened! My New York event planned for late March 2020 was my first big event to be cancelled because of the pandemic. I did, however, participate in the graduate seminar, which was my first of many, many to come using the Zoom platform. The seminar was an early morning (for me) two-hour detailed discussion of digital afterlives of projects, a theme I had been developing for many years. I planned with the organizers, Meredith Linn and Caspar Meyer, for the lecture to be given in the fall 0f 2020, when we assumed the pandemic world be over. But, of course, it was not. So then it was decided to give up on the idea of an in-place presentation and planned instead for a Zoom event in spring 2021. By now, there was a backlog of Bard presenters needing a slot. I thought the solution chosen – to pair up presenters in a “conversation” format – was a good imaginative option. I was paired with Brian Boyd (another ex-pat) who was teaching at Columbia University; he had been due originally to give a lecture the week after mine. I already knew Brian and his work that had many currents that crossed over to my own. So that is what you see here in the video.
We had invited guests who you can identify in the Zoom image, including Rosemary Joyce and Yannis Hamilakis, so there was a lively conversation that took off from our presentation, including themes of heritage, conservation, preservation, archives, digital and analog longevity, use, usability and accessibility of content.
some of the participants in the Bard Grad Center (NY) Archaeological Encounters seminar on Zoom 28 April, 2021