TAG Maritime Conference Session: Maritime identities: museum, communal and personal uses of heritage
The forthcoming TAG conference in Southampton includes a maritime session. The call for papers is now open, and the deadline for submissions is the 1st September 2008.
This session explores the ever-expanding intersection of uses of the sea and uses of the past. Maritime heritage is a distinctive area of heritage and museum studies, maritime history and archaeology, as indicated by the rapidly growing genres of maritime museums and maritime history. The diverse meanings and manifestations in this arena are not simply united by descriptive coincidence or reductive supraculturalism, but constitute a rising research agenda brimming with a comparative potential that preserves and renews case specificity. However, the idea of what constitutes maritime heritage as a realm of cultural production, remains remarkably narrow and conceptually immature. Given the fundamental relationship between identity and heritage, the processes of identity construction and negotiation within and across the spheres of maritimity and heritage require special attention.
The two-fold aim of this session is thus to expand conceptions of maritime heritage as an ethnographic object of study, while pushing forward a more clearly articulated framework for this area of heritage and museological analysis. We invite papers analysing constructions of maritime heritage and maritime ‘pasts’ by museums, nation-states, communities and individuals with notions of identity at their centre. Papers will be focused on meaning-making rather than methodologies, as well as the tensions and interactions of varied voices and experiences.
The call for papers is now open, and the deadline for submissions is the 1st September 2008. Further details on the session are available on the TAG website. Submissions to the session can be made online.
Research Agenda for the North Atlantic Conference
A Research Agenda meeting for the North Atlantic, is to be held at the University of Bradford between the 29th August and the 1st September 2008.
The meeting is designed to review and report on existing research projects and to formulate an Agenda for Future Archaeological Research in the North Atlantic. The conference is in two parts; discussant-led theme sessions with invited specialist contributions will provide the framework for the research agenda, alongside open sessions on current research. Paper contributions to be published in the new Journal of the North Atlantic (JONA). For more information contact the conference organisers , by email NABO08.bradford@googlemail.com, or the meeting website.
European Maritime Archaeology Programmes
MAG has been notified of additional maritime archaeology course available in Europe. Potential post graduate candidates for Underwater Archaeology Courses at the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar and the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa are invited to apply. More information is available at the course website (Portuguese language site).
The Syddansk Universitet is also offering a two year masters programme in maritime archaeology, free for EU/EEA students. This course also offers the opportunity to obtain a commercial SCUBA qualification. More information is available on the course website.
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National Archaeology Week set to be called the Festival of British Archaeology in 2009
The Council for British Archaeology has announced the Festival of British Archaeology, the new name for National Archaeology Week.
Due to the continued success of National Archaeology Week, from 2009 it will be extended to a fortnight long festival of archaeologically inspired events.
The Festival of British Archaeology 2009 will run from Sat 18th July – Sun 2nd August. It will retain the general format of National Archaeology Week but with more opportunies to participate in a wide range of archaeology related activities across the UK.
Other News
Montenegro has ratified the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage on July 18th, 2008. This ratification brings the number of signatory State Parties to 18, which means only two more signatories are needed before it can enter into force.
The Antikythera mechanism has revealed details of lost ancient Greek calendars following careful analysis of the mechanism using X-Ray CT analysis. The findings are reported in Nature.
Ruins found in west Greenland, that may be the remains of a ship dock may indicate the most northerly Viking hunting outpost on the island.
The remains of a submerged landscape have been identified off Rathlin Island in the north of Ireland
