Textiles – lost forever?
How do we explore material culture that is lost to the past through decay and destruction? Is it a lost cause to try and reconstruct the textile world of history? If we can reconstruct it, what can it tell us about past societies and cultures?
A History of Food
Do we know what ancient societies ate? How do we conceptualise food in past societies – is it simply fuel, or a complex culture of presentation and pomp? From the limited textual and zooarchaeological evidence that we have left, can we begin to understand how long-dead people understood their food?
Nicknames – 1 and 2
Can the nicknames of past societies tell us anything about how that society worked; their systems and group dynamics, their concerns and preoccupations?
Historical Objects, museums, and ‘reality’
What is the role of replicas within a museum context? Can a ‘fake’ ever be as meaningful as the ‘real’ deal? Do historical objects have some inherent special quality just because they were shaped and observed byt people who are now dead?
Experimental Archaeology
What is experimental archaeology, and can it ever make a serious contribution to historical narratives?
The Politics of Writing History – 1 and 2
Writing history is an inherently political action, irrespective of what that history is about. As historians, do we have a moral obligation over the history we right? Is history being actively misused for political end?
Post-Colonialism of the Medieval Period
Post Colonialism is an increasingly popular theoretical framework through which to approach the past? What does this approach include? Can it be meaningfully applied to a medieval context, where it is primarily applied to a modern context?
Exploring ‘Disability’ in History
Like so many other social categorisations, academics are not starting to accept that ‘disability’ is socially constructed, and varies by time and place. How did past societies draw boundaries between the physical ‘norm’ and impairment? Were impaired individuals always excluded by society?