Forwarded message from Catherine Crawford <[log in to unmask]>:

CALL FOR PAPERS

Material Culture in Motion: Archaeological Approaches to Object Biographies

This colloquium aims to reconsider the complexity of human dialogues with 
material culture and the consequences of these processes on the
archaeological record. The application of postmodern approaches to art 
history and anthropology has begun to restructure the way that the
social sciences and the humanities study human agency and its material 
expressions. Just as the interactions and motivations of individuals
and institutions may be seen as complex and difficult to discuss in terms 
of absolutes, material culture from antiquity through the present
day has been imbued with multivalent agencies that have become lost in 
simplified discussions of public versus private, elite versus lower
class, and even culturally conditioned notions of how one might define 
such terms as 'object' and 'usage'. Ancient artifacts may also be 
imbued with modern meanings and agencies through their treatments in 
museums and in scholarly works.

By reexamining biographies of objects from the perspectives of their 
multiple uses and users, we hope to overcome limitations that often 
accompany discussions of the complex stories that artifacts may both 
accumulate and tell. We invite papers that examine aspects of usage,
possession, or the agencies of objects, from antiquity through the 
present, in all geographic regions. Contributions may be theoretical or  
empirical.

This colloquium is organized by the Student Affairs Interest Group (SAIG) 
of the Archaeological Institute of America.  It is intended both to 
provide opportunities for student presentations at the annual  meeting, 
and to direct attention toward questions and topics that students feel are 
relevant to their discipline.  Under the title ?Material Culture in 
Motion: Archaeological Approaches to Object Biographies,? the organizers 
will submit the selected papers as a colloquium session to the next annual 
meeting of the AIA (January 4-7, 2007, San Diego, California).  All papers 
in the colloquium will be subject to acceptance by the AIA Program for the 
Annual Meeting Committee, in accordance with standard procedures. 

The SAIG would like to remind all interested students that it is possible 
for an individual to submit papers for both a colloquium session and an 
open paper session at the AIA annual meetings.  The latter is 
automatically withdrawn from consideration if the former is  accepted.

Please send a CV and an abstract of no more than 250 words by February 24, 
2006 to both ?session organizers, Sarah Lima ([log in to unmask]) and 
Catherine Lyon Crawford ( [log in to unmask]). In keeping with the 
regulations of the AIA, we will accept only electronic submissions. All 
abstracts must conform to AIA guidelines (see the American Journal of 
Archaeology style guidelines, published in AJA 104:3-24, or the Annual 
Meeting Section of the AIA website; esp. 3.1-8, 6.5. -- 
http://www.archaeological.org  

If the colloquium is accepted by the  Program for the Annual Meeting 
Committee, all whose papers are included must be members of the AIA in 
good standing.