Prof. Andrew Gardner (University College London) will be presenting the keynote lecture for the Marco Institute for Medieval & Renaissance Studies' 20th Annual Symposium, Local and Global Perspectives on Materiality in the Premodern World.

Keynote Description:

This paper will present an overview of the debates around materiality, particularly in archaeology, and a personal analysis of the positive contributions, as well as some of the drawbacks, of diverse recent approaches. The genealogy of ideas about 'object agency' and other elements of what have come to be called ‘the ontological turn’ is worth exploring, as it reveals not only a logical continuation of efforts to penetrate insiders' perspectives on past societies, but also something of a reversal of attempts to move away from the tyranny of things in archaeological interpretation. Alignment of different versions of materiality theory with successive phases of posthumanism, associated with thinkers from Latour to Braidotti and beyond, have kept this movement dynamic but also introduced gaps in the apprehension of aspects of power and ideology in social life that can, sometimes, be better grasped from an outsider's perspective. They have also introduced some very 21st century anxieties. Using examples from the archaeology of Roman imperialism, this paper will argue for perspectives on materiality which emphasise the centrality of human practices in past, present and future societies.