Stratigraphies of Knowledge. Archeological Poiesis and the Hermeneutics of (Post)Modernity

• Applicant: Dr. Mira Shah
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; History of Science
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443089765

The research project investigates the relationship of archeological poiesis and hermeneutics from around 1800 until the present. Prehistoric archeology is especially of interest for the study of literature because of its inherently hermeneutic operations and its standing as the science of human prehistory: The archeological strategies of interpreting the past, especially the ethnological analogy, render it first a popular topic of 19th century literature, then an argumentative component in theories of modernity around 1900 and finally a source of metaphors for the operations and projects of the humanities in the 20th and 21st century within the context of a reorientation that critically reflects hermeneutics as a fundamental trait of scientific study. Three layers of knowledge can therefore be investigated:First, hermeneutical thinking in archeology as it is present in the ethnological analogy, which as a basic conclusive operation is grounded in the invention of the stone age period, paradigmatic for archeological poiesis and most consequential up to our present time, especially in the methodological reflective turn in archeology itself.Secondly, the relevance of archeological poiesis for cultures of knowledge: At least from the middle of the 19th century on, the ethnological analogy drives the rise of ethnology as an ancillary discipline for the understanding of European prehistory. Especially the stone age gains traction as a mindscape and is colored in vividly: literary treatments of diggings, archeological personnel and research take the productive literary power seriously: modernity’s wants and subjectivities are projected back, for example within the popular genre of prehistoric fiction, in order to create an understanding of strange and alien prehistoric lives within and as a source for the self. These epistemic, explanatory and world building roles of the stone age can be traced right up to our contemporary preoccupation with paleo diets and paleoanthropologically rooted models of gender, society and behavior.Finally emphasis will be put on the role that archeology plays for hermeneutic theory and its critiques, that is, how archeology is productively used as a source of metaphor, mostly derived from a reconception of its core competences, for a reconfiguration of humanities around 2000: excavations, vestiges, artefacts, material and finally the workings of the archive are all notions important to the engagement with archeology's instrumentalization for the (anti-)hermeneutics of (post)modernity and its steering towards techniques of culture as epistemic objects.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position