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Conference Presentations by Friederike Kranig

In this session, we want to encourage a discussion on what archaeology is, what it could be, even... more In this session, we want to encourage a discussion on what archaeology is, what it could be, even what it should be. Where would you want to see archaeology going? We invite participants to present both general considerations and case studies that discuss motivations for doing archaeology in the context of contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental issues.

in: Kutsal, Sait Can und Schlimbach, Fedor (Hrsg.), Preguntando se llega a Roma. Festschrift für Achim Arbeiter zum 65. Geburtstag (Heidelberg 2023), 2023

Music has a very ambitious meaning in late antiquity. According to its context, it can be both us... more Music has a very ambitious meaning in late antiquity. According to its context, it can be both useful and harmful. Furthermore, it serves as an indicator of education, prestige, and virtue on the one hand, and of sin, moral decay, and immoderateness on the other. This ambiguity can hardly be grasped based on pictorial representations. Music in pictures can be found predominantly in connection with festive events in private or public spaces and serves here primarily to complete a festive scene. Music is thus never the main actor but is rather misused as a kind of stylistic device to express something specific, be it education and prestige or festive happenings. Only the mosaic in Hama presents a different concept. It is not simply about the display of wealth, luxury, and education through music. Rather, it is about the music itself, staged with the help of luxury and elitist life. The mosaic of Hama characterises music as techné, that is, as a perfect combination of art and science, and thus represents a unique work of art among musical representations.

Call for Papers Session # 1107 — “The Material Record: Current Trends and Future Directions” Ma... more Call for Papers

Session # 1107 — “The Material Record: Current Trends and Future Directions”

Manipulating Senses and Staging the Inconceivable Discovering the Embodied Past by Phenomenological Explorations and other Methods

Despite their individual and subjective nature, human sensory experiences are always a social construct, dependent on society, culture, or ethnicity. Through all ages, senses were and are utilized, deliberately stimulated and manipulated through purposeful staging. In both sacred and mundane contexts, the impact of architecture, sound, light, smell or haptics can help to engage with a new situation. Staging manipulates the sensorium and the subconscious of the receiver in order to make something imaginary bodily experienceable and thus to appear real.
Recent scholarship on perception, human behaviour, agency, and movement is being foregrounded in both ethnoarchaeological and architectural studies with a focus on the multi-sensoriality of material culture. Especially acoustics is something intangible that does not manifest itself within an object, but only in ongoing time. Of course, such fluid objects are difficult to research due to their ephemeral nature. For precisely this reason, however, we want to find new ways of thinking about senses and reconstructing the past in the archaeological practice. Once we get over the more deterministic tendencies, how can we combine phenomenological approaches with scientific data? How can we recreate sensory experiences through digital or analogue technologies? Can we conceive of an integrated methodology for experimental archaeology?

This session aims to unite diverse strands of research exploring novel avenues and directions in sensory and experimental archaeology. We invite presentations that explore different phenomenological and methodological approaches to the study of the chaine opératoire of staging and perception, technical variability, investigations into buildings, monuments and roadways outside traditional approaches, and cutting-edge tools that contribute to the creation of new methodologies for experimental and ethnoarchaeological work. We encourage papers from a wide range of archaeological and non-archaeological discipline, which are rooted in multidisciplinary research contributing to the evolution of sensory archaeology as a discipline.

Session organisers:

Friederike Kranig, R6misch-Germanische Kommission (Frankfurt am Main), Georg-August-Univer-
sitdt Géttingen, Abt. Christliche Archadologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte

Marta Lorenzon, University of Helsinki

Paula Gheorghiade, University of Helsinki

Lukas Kerk, Universitat Miinster, Abteilung fiir Ur- und Friihgeschichtliche Archéologie

Tia Sager, University of Toronto

Conference Sessions by Friederike Kranig

Between academic ivory tower, intellectual hedonism, and social responsibility. Debating the wider meaning of archaeological research and heritage management, 2025

For decades, numerous projects have investigated the context of archaeological practice and the m... more For decades, numerous projects have investigated the context of archaeological practice and the motivation of archaeologists. They ask about the social setting of archaeology, whether archaeologists find their jobs meaningful, how they assess their career opportunities, or how we can make our profession more attractive (cf. the EAA working group 'ACE' [A. MARCINIAK et al. (eds), Contemporary Faces of the Past (Poznań 2011)]; DISCO [https://landward.eu/disco/]; N. SCHLANGER, K. AITCHISON [eds], Archaeology and the Global Economic Crisis [Tervuren 2010]; s. a. https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/archaeologist/satisfaction/). As these questions never lose their relevance and should be reconsidered for each generation, we seek to maintain this tradition. In a new approach to the wider meaning of archaeology, both for society and for the discipline itself, we aim to discuss whether and how our profession goes beyond the academic 'ivory tower' that frames our thinking and doing. It is often our enthusiasm that allows us to overlook the lack of career prospects. Such enthusiasm forms an ever-present lowest common ground in the inter-archaeological exchange, which is able to bridge wide-ranging differences-both between the various archaeological disciplines and approaches and between archaeologists and the public. But excitement is not the main or only motivation to carry on. Archaeology should make sense, shouldn't it? It should have meaning beyond the hedonistic fun we may have doing what we are doing. In this session, we want to encourage a discussion on what archaeology is, what it could be, even what it should be. Where would you want to see archaeology going? We invite participants to present both general considerations and case studies that discuss motivations for doing archaeology in the context of contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental issues.