NYAS @ WGF: Erupting Ruins: Dialectics of the Urban Landscape

The final NYAS Anthropology Section meeting lecture of 2013 (but not of the season!) is upon us, as we welcome the University of Chicago’s Shannon Lee Dawdy and discussant Meredith Linn of Barnard College 7:00 PM Monday, December 9th, to discuss her ethnohistorical research of French New Orleans with Erupting Ruins: Dialectics of the Urban Landscape.

Using the examples of surprising — even disturbing — archaeological preservation in my field site of New Orleans, I explore what it means to understand the landscape as dialectical. Forgotten plantation houses beneath the city’s warehouse district and the sunken remains of bawdy taverns expose non-continuous series of ruptures, disasters, abrupt shifts, but also the unaccountable continuity of unconscious structures.

I argue that the urban landscape is comprised of compacted ruins that both structure and undermine present-day spatial experiences.

A reception will precede the meeting at 6:00 pm. Attending the meeting is free, but registration is required. Please contact NYAS to reserve your place.