CONF./CFP- Regimes and Revolutions: 3rd U Chicago Conf. on Eurasian Archaeology

Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian Studies

CONF./CFP- Regimes and Revolutions: 3rd U Chicago Conf. on Eurasian Archaeology

Posted by: Charles Hartley <chartley@uchicago.edu>

Call For Papers

The 3rd University of Chicago Conference on Eurasian Archaeology

Regimes and Revolutions:
Power, Violence, and Labor in Eurasia
Between the Ancient and the Modern

May 1-3, 2008
University of Chicago

Recent decades have witnessed a turn in anthropological archaeology
away from totalizing, top-down accounts of elite power. In their
stead, society and politics have come to be theorized within community
organizations and more diffuse locations of authority. But the
contemporary politics of Eurasia's independent states cautions against
an archaeological about-face. Grassroots claims to power can be
restricted and communities can be both incapable of, and disillusioned
by, engagement in political struggles. Rulers can indeed hold a firm
grasp on political order, exerting tremendous power, deploying the
weapons of coercive violence, and marshalling the forces of labor.

The authoritarian politics of the present remind us of the need to
consider power and violence in the past. The modern politics of
Eurasia challenge us to disentangle social and economic
transformations from political ones and to probe not only the
archaeology of social lives within communities but also the
politics­egalitarian, despotic, charismatic, bureaucratic,
traditional­that ordered these lives. What does political authority
over the longue durée look like across Eurasia? What is the role of
material culture in preserving regimes and producing revolution? How
can we explore the work of power without subsuming it to the domain of
governmental institutions? The 3rd University of Chicago Conference
on Eurasian Archaeology will examine the instruments of power, the
semiotics of legitimation, and the mobilization of labor in the
constitution of politics from prehistory to today.

The University of Chicago Conferences on Eurasian Archaeology bring
together graduate students and senior researchers from institutions
across North America, Europe, and Asia. Organized and run by the
graduate students of the University of Chicago, each conference
centers on a theme that is intended to encapsulate a broad set of
pressing issues in the field. But the conferences also provide a
forum for sharing new data, testing original ideas, and developing
cross-cultural conversations that will forward the next decade of
research in Eurasia.

Individuals interested in presenting should send an abstract of no
more than 200 words along with a completed submission form to Charles
Hartley <chartley@uchicago.edu> by December 15, 2007. Please include
the full name of the presenter and all co-authors, with their
institutional affiliations, mailing addresses, and e-mail addresses.
Additional information is available at the conference website:
http://acc.spc.uchicago.edu/eurasianconference/

Scholars interested in organizing thematic sessions should contact
Charles Hartley no later than November 1, 2007.

Graduate students are strongly encouraged to participate. Papers will
be selected for presentation based on how closely they fit to the
overall theme of the conference. There is no registration fee for the
conference.

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