quarta-feira, 11 de fevereiro de 2009

My mission in Canada and USA, next March


VISIT TO TORONTO AND BUFFALO – MY TALKS


March 23, 2009 - 5pm - University of Buffalo
THAT HILL BELONGS TO US: ON THE ROLE OF “PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURES” IN THE MAKING OF TERRITORIAL IDENTITIES IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA, 3rd to 2nd MILL., BC.

Talk to be delivered at the Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology at the State University of New York in Buffalo.

This talk provides a general account of the archaeological research programs developed by the University of Porto in northern Portugal over the past 30 years. As well, it highlights some of the questions that underpin, to a certain extent, common research problems in other regions of Europe and elsewhere. At its core, this research emphasizes the way people may have dealt with the environment, and stresses the act of “building” as a mode of constituting socialities and of distributing power, roles and status in stateless societies.


March 24, 2009 - 5:30pm - Archaeology Centre, University of Toronto
CAN ARCHAEOLOGY OVERCOME EVOLUTIONISM, CULTURE HISTORY AND PROCESSUALISM? TOWARDS AN ANARCHAEOLOGY

Lecture to be delivered at the Archaeology Centre, University of Toronto. Audience: mainly faculty and graduate students plus a few undergraduates.

Despite the fact that cultural evolutionism, as a theory of human development, was born in the 19th century as a consequence of modern rationalism and the Enlightenment, it continues to this day as our principal frame of reference when looking at history (and prehistory in particular). As a long trend that percolates through contemporary thought to explain change and history, cultural evolutionism imparts an historical teleology which tends to explain each “future” as a more or less unavoidable consequence of each particular “past”. Among philosophers, this illusion has been called into question by the likes of Nietzsche, Foucault and many others. Can we, as archaeologists, envisage a past that proceeds any differently? Admittedly, that is not an easy task, and yet it is appealing and urgent, if for no other reason than to free us from an unnecessary ideology.

March 26, 2009 - 10 am – Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Toronto
ARQUEOLOGIA DE UMA TRAJECTÓRIA POÉTICA: O MEU TESTEMUNHO
(ARCHAEOLOGY OF A POETIC TRAJECTORY: MY TESTIMONY)

Poetry talk to be delivered in José Pedro Ferreira’s class on poetry, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Toronto (in Portuguese).

V.O. Jorge will talk about his poetry, how poetry and archaeology can meet, and the experience of being a poet from his point of view and personal experience. He will also read some of his poems. Feedback from the audience and debate are welcome.


March 26, 2009 - 2 pm - Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Toronto
PORTUGAL: A MOSAIC OF VARIANCE BUT WITH TWO MAJOR “AREAS” – NORTH AND SOUTH

Talk to be delivered in Manuela Marujo’s class on Portuguese Culture and Civilization, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Toronto

Portugal, as with many countries in Europe, has a North and a South. This is obviously a fantasized oversimplification, but as a contemporary “mental model” it serves to influence the way people think and live. Some of the implications of this “divide,” which sound strange in a geographically small country like Portugal, will be explored in this talk and open to dialogue with the audience.


March 27, 2009 - 10 am – Archaeology Centre, University of Toronto
THE ROLE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IN MEMORY AND IDENTITY

Lecture to be delivered at the Archaeology Centre, University of Toronto. Audience: mainly faculty and graduate students plus a few undergraduates.

Archaeological knowledge, however we wish to define it, is an historical product of the last two centuries. How is this knowledge connected to modern regimes of memory, identity, and mourning? Moreover, why has archaeology become so interesting for the public, as well as the heritage and tourism industry, and yet remains a somewhat marginal field in the social sciences and in its capacity to affect change in the territories and the landscapes we inhabit? It is precisely this paradoxical situation that I would like to develop: the centrality and marginality of archaeology as a discipline and profession.


March 27, 2009 - 7 pm – Academia do Bacalhau, Toronto
MY EXPERIENCE AS A PORTUGUESE ARCHAELOGIST IN THE LAST FORTY YEARS (1969-2009)

Talk to be delivered at a dinner organized by the Toronto Chapter of the Academia do Bacalhau.

I will describe, in a most informal way, my experience as an archaeologist, stressing both the more interesting points and the weaker ones that I have witnessed myself.

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