That Raw and Ancient Cold: On Graham Harman's recasting of archaeology
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That Raw and Ancient Cold: On Graham Harman's recasting of archaeology. / Sørensen, Tim Flohr.
In: Open Philosophy, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2021, p. 1-19.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - That Raw and Ancient Cold: On Graham Harman's recasting of archaeology
AU - Sørensen, Tim Flohr
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This is a comment to Graham Harman’s 2019 response to an article by Þóra Pétursdóttir and Bjørnar Olsen (2018) in which they propose that a materially grounded, archaeological perspective might complement Harman’s historical approach in Immaterialism (2016). Harman responds that his book is indeed already more archaeological than historical, stipulating that history is the study of media with a high density of information, whereas archaeology studies media with a low density of information. History, Harman holds, ends up in too much detail, while archaeology has the advantage of lending itself to the imagination. Hence, his reading of history had the aim of tempering the historical information overload, in effect making the book a work of archaeology. In this comment, I want to do three things: (1) critique the idea that archaeological and historical media are inherently different with regard to their densities of information, (2) discuss how archaeology and history approach their media, and (3) reflect on conceptualisations of “archaeology” outside the discipline itself.
AB - This is a comment to Graham Harman’s 2019 response to an article by Þóra Pétursdóttir and Bjørnar Olsen (2018) in which they propose that a materially grounded, archaeological perspective might complement Harman’s historical approach in Immaterialism (2016). Harman responds that his book is indeed already more archaeological than historical, stipulating that history is the study of media with a high density of information, whereas archaeology studies media with a low density of information. History, Harman holds, ends up in too much detail, while archaeology has the advantage of lending itself to the imagination. Hence, his reading of history had the aim of tempering the historical information overload, in effect making the book a work of archaeology. In this comment, I want to do three things: (1) critique the idea that archaeological and historical media are inherently different with regard to their densities of information, (2) discuss how archaeology and history approach their media, and (3) reflect on conceptualisations of “archaeology” outside the discipline itself.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Archaeology
KW - Object-Oriented Ontology
KW - Epistemology
KW - Uncertainty
KW - Media
KW - Philosophy
KW - Arkæologi
KW - Filosofi
KW - Historie
KW - Objekt-orienteret ontologi
KW - Metafor
KW - Mørkt stof
U2 - 10.1515/opphil-2020-0151
DO - 10.1515/opphil-2020-0151
M3 - Journal article
VL - 4
SP - 1
EP - 19
JO - Open Philosophy
JF - Open Philosophy
SN - 2543-8875
IS - 1
ER -
ID: 255786624