BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ical@bgc.bard.edu//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.16.12//
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Bard Graduate Center
X-WR-CALDESC:
X-WR-RELCALID:f
X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:event_1059@www.bgc.bard.edu
DTSTAMP:20260807T102148Z
DESCRIPTION:Registration for this event is closed. Bard Graduate Center fac
 ulty\, students\, fellows\, staff\, and alumni who would like to attend sh
 ould email academicevents@bgc.bard.edu.Material culture is often described
  as a “survival” of\nthe past in the present\, be it in the form of evocat
 ive fragments or as “traces”\nenlisted in historical inquiry. The implicit
  preoccupation with our relationship with the past has\ndiverted attention
  from the relationship which past actors had with their future and the way
 s in which they\nrelied on material culture to shape that relationship. If
  the future-oriented\nperceptions of past actors were at all considered\, 
 they tended to be\nrationalized in terms of social and economic interests 
 that are external to the\nmaterial engagements underpinning cultural pheno
 mena. In this symposium an\ninternational panel of material culture specia
 lists will explore how\nimagination and planning towards the future affect
 ed relationships between\nobjects and people. How did the future possibili
 ties envisaged by past actors\ncondition the ways in which they created\, 
 perceived\, transformed\, stored\, and\ndiscarded objects? What are the br
 oader methodological implications of\nunderstanding artefacts as starting-
 points for\, rather than outcomes of\,\ncultural practices? To what extent
  can material culture be understood to embody\nthe desired life-paths of h
 uman and non-human agents? To gain traction on the\nfutural tensions impli
 cit in material culture\, the participants will explore a\nseries of case 
 studies (artefacts and assemblages from different Eurasian and\nMediterran
 ean contexts of the first millennium BC) through the lens of recent\nresea
 rch on distributed creativity and notions of the possible. These emerging
 \nfields foreground the material and relational foundations of creative ac
 tion.\nBy studying innovation as anticipation (that is: as the ongoing dyn
 amics\nbetween hands and minds\, manipulation and imagination\, in the mak
 ing and use of\nobjects) this symposium is intended to challenge the rigid
  dichotomies in\narchaeological thought between mental and material proces
 ses\, and actual and\npossible realities. The discussions aim to enrich no
 t only current accounts of\nhow individuals and groups evolve in their soc
 ial fields but also the\ntraditional large-scale narratives centered on te
 chnological “revolution\,”\ncross-cultural diffusion\, and state formation
 .
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20200501T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20200501T180000
SUMMARY:Bard Graduate Center: CANCELED—Symposium—The Future as Cultural Art
 efact
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR