About RATS
RATS is an occasional conference organized by graduate students designed to evaluate and push the frontiers of radical archaeological theory and practice. RATS 2009 will take place 17 October 2009 at Binghamton University. The theme is "Anarchism and Archaeology."
The label “radical archaeologist” carries both theoretical and practical implications. As people who wear the label proudly, we share a commitment to engage with ideas that are often considered anti-establishment, marginal, or confrontational. Moreover, we embrace a political commitment to act against entrenched systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism and discrimination; and on a larger scale all forms of colonialism and imperialism.
The greatest threat to a radical position is a slow mainstreaming into respectability -- when a “grand theory” becomes institutionalized, when debates are reduced to questions of doctrine, when radical practice is bravely (re)presented in discourse but does not extend beyond the classroom or lab door.
This RATS conference challenges archaeologists to engage with ideas drawn from the political philosophy of anarchism: the belief that hierarchies of any kind are inevitably corrupting, oppressive and dehumanizing; and a paired commitment to act against hierarchies and coercive practices at all times.
We believe that any discussion of theory is aimless without a paired focus on practice/praxis. Anarchism can easily be viewed as a principle of practice only. One goal of this conference is to examine the extent to which anarchist practice can, is, or should be grounded in theory. How can we rethink the dialectic, but all too often missing, link between anarchist theory within academia and anarchist practice outside of academia? Few archaeologists self-identify as anarchists, yet we are perhaps uniquely suited to investigate and expose the situated, historical trajectories of hierarchy, domination and resistance. Moreover, as practitioners in the classroom, lab, field and society, we can set our imagination free and live out our ideas. We wish to explore the implications of anarchism for archaeological theory and practice.
We challenge participants to consider:
1. Does anarchism have a body of theory that can be applicable to archaeological theory?
2. Can or should archaeology contribute to anarchist theory(?) and practice?
3. How would an anarchist archaeology be theorized and practiced?
4. What roadblocks (institutional, pedagogical, practical and otherwise) to anarchist archaeological theory and/or practice must be opposed, and how?
5. How can anarchist archaeological theory and methods be developed?
This RATS will begin with a keynote talk by Mark Lance, professor of philosophy and director of the Program on Justice and Peace, Georgetown University. Two sessions of papers and discussion will follow.
Please join us for what promises to be an interesting and provocative day!
Keynote Speaker
This RATS will begin with a keynote talk by Mark Lance, professor of philosophy and director of the Program on Justice and Peace, Georgetown University.
Professor Lance earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, and held a three year post-doctoral fellowship at Syracuse University. He is currently a Professor at Georgetown University in both the philosophy department and the Program on Justice and Peace.
Professor Lance works mostly in the areas of philosophy of language, epistemology, philosophical logic, and metaphysics, but writes as well on pragmatism, feminism, meta-ethics, the foundations of mathematics, anarchist theory and applied issues of social justice activism. He has published over 30 articles and two books on such topics as relevance logic, normativity, meaning, Bayesianism, and sexual identity. He is currently writing books on anarchism and rational community, understanding, defeasible laws (with Margaret Little), and the pragmatics of social authority (with Rebecca Kukla), as well as articles on such topics as the foundations of set theory, and consensus decision making. His most recent book is 'Yo!' and 'Lo!': the pragmatic topography of the space of reasons, co-authored with Rebecca Kukla, which was recently published by Harvard University Press.
Outside of philosophy, Professor Lance is an activist, organizer, and frequent speaker on issues of social justice.