TAG Durham 2009 - Call for papers

Dear colleagues
We will coordinate a session in TAG 2009 (Durham, UK):
http://www.dur.ac.uk/tag.2009/index.html



Archaeology and Poetry: Questions of translation

Organised by: Vitor O. Jorge (University of Porto,
vitor.oliveirajorge@gmail.com) and Daniela Kato (Tokyo Institute of Technology, ytd_kato@ybb.ne.jp)




ABSTRACT
Despite their different nature both archaeology (a social science) and poetry (an artistic expression) aim to productively translate one reality into another. Archaeologists translate remains or traces into a historical narrative re-presenting the “past” in the present. This has to do with collective memory and with a general ethos of modernity by which meaning is assigned and integrated into a total system of order. For their part poets translate feelings, thoughts and inner experiences into texts and/or performances that can re-present them at a general, public level of aesthetic enjoyment. Both archaeology and poetic activity select the elements that are incorporated into their discourse. Some elements are lost in translation, some others are re-presented or implied in a play of truth and simulation. In a world of global communication and of continuous translation, how do we preserve, recover and represent the specificity, and the local, contextual, personal meaning of a given reality? Can archaeology and poetry cross-fertilise in their different attempts at establishing a precarious “equilibrium” between identity and deferral, the local and the global, and truth and error? Can we consider these dialectics as the “motor” of an endless effort to make sense of something – and to attract the critical attention of others – in our planetary community?


Please send your paper's proposals! Thanks
Best regards
Daniela Kato – University of Tokyo – Ph. D. in Literary Studies
Vitor Oliveira Jorge – University of Porto – Ph.D. in Archaeology