Reclaiming archaeology (introduction) (original) (raw)

2013, In A. González-Ruibal (ed.): Reclaiming Archaeology: beyond the tropes of Modernity.

Archaeology has been an important source of metaphors for some of the key intellectuals of the 20 th century , including philosophers, writers, art historians and historians: Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Alois Riegl, Michel Foucault or George Bataille to mention but a few. Some of them resorted to archaeological metaphors in a very explicit way (Freud, Foucault), others more unconsciously (Husserl or Heidegger: Edgeworth 2006), but, in any case, the allure of the archaeological is very present in the making of modern thought. However, this power of archaeology has also turned against archaeology, because the discipline has been dealt with perfunctorily as a mere provider of metaphors that other intellectuals have exploited (Olsen 2010: 2), often in more fruitful ways. Not surprisingly, if one searches the word "archaeology" in Google Scholar, the first three results refer to Foucault's work, not to "real" archaeology-which is ironic, because the book is actually a rejection of classical archaeological tropes (such as origins and depth).