Course Longue Durée Perspectives in the Anthropocene

Description:

This course responds to the radical changes that humans have wrought upon the world, ushering in an era that has come to be known as the Anthropocene. While the industrial revolution and recent carbon dioxide emissions have rightly taken centre stage in public discourse, there is a greater time-depth to human entanglements in world changing that is often forgotten. It is this time-depth, or longue duree, and the collected responses of the environmental humanities and archaeology to this, that we will explore in order to:

1) increase the awareness of long-term perspectives, their importance, and the concrete new insights which they reveal,

2) critically assess how such perspectives contribute to understandings of the Anthropocene and current societal challenges (beyond simply establishing the longevity of particular phenomena), and

3) develop students' understandings of how their research can speak to these broader concerns and position them to participate in academic and public debate.

Rethinking 'longue durée' processes allows disciplines like archaeology, anthropology, history or biology to reconsider classic questions surrounding long-term trends of change and continuity, social and community organisation, and practices of daily life, dwelling or 'being in the world'. More importantly, it allows scholars to speak to the local and global social and environmental crises of modernity with a fresh perspective. Consider, for example, the long-term enactment of South Scandinavian heathlands: in the Neolithic, humans –– in conjunction with fire and livestock––created vast open pastures of heathland across Western Jutland. Despite radical changes in climate, ideology, and society in the following millennia, the heathlands continued to persist. Understanding such paradoxes of ‘continuity amidst change’ deserves theoretical scrutiny. Moreover, the long-term perspective on landscapes like heathlands teaches us about the circular economy and resource use, the rise of collaboration, as well as alternative forms of biosocial organisation. 

Humans will always be in and of the world. Now, more than ever, we must consider long-term strategies that bring about stable ways of persisting alongside diverse species mosaics. The collected approaches of the environmental humanities opens up a new tool set for understanding, and arguing for, the necessary changes to our modern ways of life. This course allows young scholars to explore these ideas, relate them to their own work, and to think in ways that expand beyond both the narrow confines of traditional academia and solely technological ways of responding to climate catastrophe. 

Aim:

The course will take place as a mix of lectures and workshops where each PhD student gets a chance to work in-depth with - and get feedback on - their own project scope and impact. One day will be dedicated to a fieldtrip, visiting different kinds of longue durée cultural landscapes in the vicinity of campus Moesgaard, including heathlands, meadows, dykes, pastures and parks.

Literature:

Abram, S. 2014. The time it takes: temporalities of planning. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 20, 129-77.
Bailey, G. 2007. Time perspectives, palimpsests and the archaeology of time. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26, 198-223.
Gosden, C. & G. Lock 1998. Prehistoric histories. World Archaeology 30, 2-12.
Gamble, C. 2014. The anthropology of deep history. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21, 147-64.
Løvschal, M. 2021. Anthropogenic Heathlands: Disturbance ecologies and the social organisation of past super-resilient landscapes. Antiquity, 1-6. 

Target group:

Both early and late stage PhD's. We are also open to MA students participating. 

Form:

Lectures, group work and field work.

Lecturers:

Mark Haughton

Mette Løvschal (lovschal@cas.au.dk)

Potentially other ANTHEA scholars

Potentially scholars from MoMu, CEH, Bioscience

Course dates:

• 31 October 2022 09:00 - 15:00
• 01 November 2022 09:00 - 15:00
• 02 November 2022 09:00 - 15:00