Background

Over the past two decades the humanities have been undergoing changes. We have seen a shift away from defining ‘culture’ or ‘society’ as the overarching subject of study, and a greater engagement with the natural sciences. This has seen the arrival of a new body of theoretical literature, including new materialism, critical feminism, post-humanism, new animism, environmental humanities and digital humanities. This literature has impacted on different humanities disciplines to varying extents including archaeology, art history, environmental humanities, English, education/teaching and learning, media studies, heritage studies, gender studies, history of religions.

Aim

The aim of this reading group is to explore in detail the work of one or two authors, and to explore the way in which this literature crosses humanities disciplines (hence the title ‘relational humanities’). Often this literature is regarded as complex, and a reading group is a valuable way of offering guidance or a ‘way through’ this complex, diverse and ever growing new theoretical literature.

One of the envisaged aims of the reading group is to foster connections between individuals working in different disciplines in the humanities. It is understood that this will promote the understanding of the texts, while also potentially enabling individuals to develop future postdoctoral projects across the University.

Practical matters

The reading group will run for a period of 6 weeks over the spring term (meeting once a week), and will be open-ended: the choice of texts to be discussed will be chosen by the group at the outset of the term.

The reading group will take place every Thursday, 14.00-16.00, beginning 21/3 and ending 2/5, and will be in room 439, Wallenberglaboratoriet building, Frescati.

The Reading Group hosts

Andrew Meirion Jones is Professor of Archaeology, Stockholm University. He has been working with aspects of new materialist and post-humanist theory for around 15 years, and has a particular interest in the archaeology of art. He has published several books influenced by new materialism and posthumanism including Prehistoric Materialities (2012), Archaeology after Interpretation (2013, edited with Ben Alberti and Josh Pollard), The Archaeology of Art. Materials, practices, affects (2018, with Andrew Cochrane), Making a Mark: image and process in Neolithic Britain and Ireland (2019, with Marta Díaz-Guardamino) and Images in the Making. Art, archaeology, process (2020, with Ing-Marie Back Danielsson). His most recent work has involved a collaboration with Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists in the Blackfoot community of Alberta, Canada which has led him to also become interested in issues of decolonization. (Profile page)

Christina Fredengren is Professor at the Department of Art history, Uppsala University and Associate Professor at Archaeological Research Laboratory, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University. With several international publications in archeology, feminist posthumanities, wetland archaeology, natural/cultural heritage and environmental humanities. She is Head of the Stockholm University Environmental Humanities Research School and one of the founders of Stockholm University Environmental Humanities Network. She is a key member of The Posthumanities Hub and the Seed Box: An Environmental Humanities Collaboratory. She is Pi of research projects such as Museum Ecologies (RAÄ FoU), Checking in with Deep Time (funded by Formas – A Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) as well as Pi of Water of the Times (funded by the Swedish Research Council, Berit Wallenberg foundation), and Pi of Curating Time (funded by the SeedBox). (Profile page)

Indicative Reading list

Barad, K., 2007. Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke university Press.

Bennett, J., 2001. The enchantment of modern life: Attachments, crossings, and ethics. Princeton University Press.

Bennett, J., 2010. Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Braidotti, R., 2019. Posthuman knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press.

DeLanda, M., 2011. Philosophy and simulation: the emergence of synthetic reason. London: Bloomsbury.

De Landa, M., 2021. A thousand years of nonlinear history. Princeton University Press.

Grosz, E. A ed., 1999. Becomings: Explorations in time, memory, and futures. Cornell University Press.

Grosz, E.A., 2008. Chaos, territory, art: Deleuze and the framing of the earth. Columbia University Press.

Grosz, E., 2017. The incorporeal: Ontology, ethics, and the limits of materialism. Columbia University Press.

Haraway, D.J., 2013. When species meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Haraway, D.J., 2016. Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Hayles, N. K. 1999 How we became posthuman. Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Hayles, N.K., 201. Unthought: The power of the cognitive nonconscious. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Ingold, T., 2016. Lines: A brief history. London: Routledge.

Latour, B., 2012. We have never been modern. Harvard University Press.

Viveiros de Castro, E., 2013. The relative native. Chicago: Chicago university Press.

Viveiros de Castro, E., 2015. Cannibal metaphysics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.