Writing Remains: New Intersections of Archaeology, Literature and Science

Description

Writing Remains brings together a wide range of leading archaeologists and literary scholars to explore emerging intersections in archaeological and literary studies. Drawing upon a wide range of literary texts from the nineteenth century to the present, the book offers new approaches to understanding storytelling and narrative in archaeology, and the role of archaeological knowledge in literature and literary criticism. The book's eight chapters explore a wide array of archaeological approaches and methods, including scientific archaeology, identifying intersections with literature and literary studies which are textual, conceptual, spatial, temporal and material. Examining literary authors from Thomas Hardy and Bram Stoker to Sarah Moss and Paul Beatty, scholars from across disciplines are brought into dialogue to consider fictional narrative both as a site of new archaeological knowledge and as a source and object of archaeological investigation.

Josie Gill is Lecturer in Black British Writing in the Department of English at the University of Bristol, UK. Catriona McKenzie is a Senior Lecturer in Human Osteoarchaeology in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Exeter, UK. Emma Lightfoot is Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Biomolecular Archaeology at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Drawing on fields as diverse as archaeogenetics and narrative theory, Writing Remains is a much-needed, truly interdisciplinary excavation of the rich ground where archaeology and literature meet. Moving well beyond the conventional treatment of archaeology as metaphor, the editors persuasively argue for the ethical function of literary and archaeological narrative in examining not only the past but also what it means to be human. With special attention to the role of race in these narratives, Writing Remains has a special urgency for our own time. * Virginia Zimmerman, Professor of English, Bucknell University, USA *