Stanford Continuing Studies, Fall 2009, Thursdays at 7pm. First class 25 September 2009

Building 200-305 - History Corner

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Of all the sciences, archaeology seems to be the most concrete – literally "grounded" in material evidence. But, of course, all the "stuff" that archaeologists dig up is in bits and pieces, and can be rendered whole again only by an act of the imagination – and good story telling. How does it happen that dirty bits of stuff can become coherent and often enchanting stories of the past? That's the subject of this course. We will investigate some of the strategies of the archaeological imagination – "digging deep," "the face of the past," "footprints of time," "forensics and decipherment," "the romance of ruin" – and some of the best stories it has produced, from the novels of Walter Scott and the paintings of Turner to the poet Seamus Heaney and the modern TV detective. We will use the latest contemporary media – video, 3-D simulation, and other computer graphics programs – to understand how lost cities like Pompeii and Machu Picchu can now be visited imaginatively, and how our ancestors from thousands of years ago can be retrieved through facial reconstruction, and look us in the eye once more.

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Go to the class website - http://documents.stanford.edu/ArchaeologicalImagination/Home

We start in the Scottish borders ...