Monday, March 14, 2022

Faculty Talks Outside the Box: "Unsettling Archaeology and History in an American Heartland: Recollecting and Reconnecting the Past in the Miami Valley of Southwest Ohio"

Unsettling Archaeology and History in an American Heartland:
Recollecting and Reconnecting the Past in the Miami Valley of Southwest Ohio 

Dr. Robert Cook of The Ohio State University taking notes in a field of tall vegetation. Image courtesy of The Ohio State University.
Presentation by Dr. Robert Cook,  Professor of Anthropology

March 29, 2022 4 PM - 5:30 PM
Virtual Faculty Talks Outside the Box Talk


This talk is free and open to the public.

If you need accommodations, please include that information in the registration above. Requests made 2 weeks prior the event will generally allow seamless access, but OSU will make every effort to meet all requests.

The study of the past is rapidly changing. Archaeologists, historians, and scholars from related disciplines have come to recognize that their work is deeply rooted in the same set of settler/colonial narratives and assumptions that have shaped Western society more broadly. In this "Faculty Talk Outside the Box," Dr. Robert Cook will discuss his work to “decolonize” archaeological and historical research practices. His presentation will focus on his involvement in an interdisciplinary study of a particular site in southwestern Ohio--Turpin--and its goal of helping mend severed attachments to ancestral homelands. Yet this project goes further and conducts a type of archaeology of archaeology itself, studying the process as it was first practiced in the late 1800s and remedying its deficiencies through modern field and lab methods in collaboration with descendant communities and other stakeholders. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to develop a model for a decolonized archaeological research centered on collaboration between archaeologists, historians, descendant communities and the broader public.

For more information, visit The Ohio State University Newark.

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