The University of Pennsylvania Press is seeking book proposals for a new series in Archaeological Theory. The series flyer is reproduced below - if you are interested, or have any queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch!
John
Introducing a new series from The University of Pennsylvania Press
Archaeology: Theories and Practice
Series editor: John Moreland
Professor of Historical Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK
Over the last fifty years Archaeology has gone through a series of mini-theoretical revolutions as each generation, reacting both to the apparent intellectual failures of previous generations and to the concerns of its own world, has sought to find ultimate ‘central theory’ for the discipline - ultimate in the sense that it would avoid the weaknesses of previous attempts and take us closer to what were taken to be the concerns and realities of past societies. This has led to university courses in Archaeological Theory being taught as a sequence of paradigm shifts, turning the development of the discipline into a race in which each runner passes on the torch of truth to the next relay. It has also resulted in the Fukuyama-like assumption (and assertion) that we have come to the end of theory.
This innovative series is born out of the observation that here, as elsewhere, theory and reality diverge. It is not the case that each new theoretical ‘turn’ in Archaeology made earlier versions redundant; what is the case, rather, is that each of the previous variants of archaeological theory persist, either on their own or as part of more variegated approaches, to provide valuable frameworks for our understanding of the past. In addition, while post-processualism appears to hold sway, at present, in parts of the English-speaking world, American Archaeology seems to prefer processual approaches. It also seems apparent that younger scholars are more eclectic in their application of theory, incorporating, for example, some of the insights of culture history into works which would be broadly categorised as post-processual. Further, and perhaps most excitingly, new developments in archaeological science have brought to the fore a series of issues which lie at the heart of some of the big questions that face (and faced) humanities. The reality is that, rather than the ‘end of theory’, we are currently witnessing an unparalleled proliferation in archaeological theory.
The idea of this series is to tap that richness by providing a coherent platform on which to examine and celebrate the diversity of archaeological theory as the product of fifty years of intellectual endeavour. Each volume will foreground the role of archaeological theory/theories in enhancing our understanding of the past, whether through detailed discussions of the value of particular perspectives or though the ‘application’ of theories to particular issues.
For more details, to discuss projects, and for a proposal form, please contact:
John Moreland, series editor:
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or
Deborah Blake, commissioning editor in archaeology and ancient studies for Penn Press:
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University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4112, USA
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
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