An archaeology of the contemporary era : the age of destruction / Alfredo González-Ruibal. - 1st - 1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Outline of the book
1. An archaeology of the contemporary era
Archaeologies of the contemporary past
What is "contemporary"?
Supermodernity, Postmodernity, the Anthropocene
Reasserting the modern divide
Defining an archaeological era
Archaeological knowledge and the contemporary past
Summary
2. Ruins
Systemic collapse
Systemic operation
Autophagy
Failure
Catastrophe
Annihilation
Summary
3. Politics
The soft politics of contemporary archaeology
A radical politics for contemporary archaeology
Summary
4. Ethics
The hegemony of ethics
The ethics of witnessing
The temporality of ethics
Ethics and affect
Summary
5. Aesthetics
The aesthetic regimes of art and archaeology
The politics of the sensible
A poetics of things
Making the mud and crops speak: an archaeological rhetoric
Summary
6. Time
Presentism
Annihilation
Acceleration
Heterochrony
The time of tragedy and hope
Summary
7. Space
Expansion
Impoverishment
Ephemerality
Division and confinement
Waste
Deep mapping
Summary
8. Materiality
Proliferation and deprivation
Monsters
Waste
Atmospheres
Summary
9. Concluding remarks: beyond the Anthropocene
References
Index
Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; List of figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Outline of the book; CHAPTER 1: An archaeology of the contemporary era; Archaeologies of the contemporary past; What is "contemporary"?; Supermodernity, postmodernity, the Anthropocene; Reasserting the modern divide; Defining an archaeological era; Archaeological knowledge and the contemporary past; Summary; CHAPTER 2: Ruins; Systemic collapse; Systemic operation; Autophagy; Failure; Catastrophe; Annihilation; Summary; CHAPTER 3: Politics The soft politics of contemporary archaeologyA radical politics for contemporary archaeology; Summary; CHAPTER 4: Ethics; The hegemony of ethics; The ethics of witnessing; The temporality of ethics; Ethics and affect; Summary; CHAPTER 5: Aesthetics; The aesthetic regimes of art and archaeology; The politics of the sensible; A poetics of things; Making the mud and crops speak: an archaeological rhetoric; Summary; CHAPTER 6: Time; Presentism; Annihilation; Acceleration; Heterochrony; The time of tragedy and hope; Summary; CHAPTER 7: Space; Expansion; Impoverishment; Ephemerality Division and confinementWaste; Deep mapping; Summary; CHAPTER 8: Materiality; Proliferation and deprivation; Monsters; Waste; Atmospheres; Summary; CHAPTER 9: Concluding remarks: beyond the Anthropocene; References; Index
An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era approaches the contemporary age, between the late nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, as an archaeological period defined by specific material processes. It reflects on the theory and practice of the archaeology of the contemporary past from epistemological, political, ethical and aesthetic viewpoints, and characterises the present based on archaeological traces from the spatial, temporal and material excesses that define it. The materiality of our era, the book argues, and particularly its ruins and rubbish, reveals something profound, original and disturbing about humanity.
9780429806995 042980699X 9780429807008 0429807007 9780429806988 0429806981 9780429441752 0429441754
10.4324/9780429441752 doi
Archaeology--Philosophy.
CC72
930.1