May Beaudry and Ewa Domanska, the Nordic House, Thurday the 29th of August from 13-15

The reasearch project My Favourite Things invites to a open lecture on Thursday the 29th of August in the Nordic House from 13:00 - 15:00

Dr Ewa Domanska is a professor of human sciences at the Department of History, Adam Mickiewicz University, in Poznan, Poland. She has also, since 2002, held the position of recurring visiting professor at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University, USA.

Domanskas’s research covers a broad spectrum of topics and themes. She has engaged with the fields of theory and history of historiography, comparative theory of the humanities and social sciences, non-European and post-anthropocentic approaches to the past, new materialism, ecocide and genocide studies, and ecological/environmental humanities.

Dr. Mary Beaudry is a professor of Archaeology, Anthropology, and Gastronomy at Boston University in the USA.

Beaudry's research intrests are historical and industrial archaeology of the Americas and British Isles; comparative colonialism; culture contact; gender and equity issues in archaeology; the food and foodways; the archaeology of historical households and homelots; documentary archaeology; landscape; ceramic analysis and typologies

Ewa Domanska's abstract

Vestige

In my presentation I will explore the status of the remains of the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I discuss the consequences of the detonation of the bomb that resulted in the bodies of those at the epicentre “evaporating”, leaving behind a shadow or stain. I will analyze the fragment of the steps at the entrance to Sumitomo Bank in Hiroshima with the imprinted human spot. Right now it is a part of the collection exhibited in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The object is named “Human Shadow Etched in Stone” (人影の石). My findings show that to leave it within the realm of humanities-based interpretations that reify the metaphor of the shadow limits the scope of analysis. I thus supplement my analysis with expert reports by specialists in biochemistry and biophysics pertaining to this site. These reports verify interpretations that refer to the phenomenon as a ‘shadow’ by pointing to the materiality of the traces and the permanent presence of atomized traces of remains. These findings prove the legitimacy of dialogue between the humanities and natural sciences, furthering the mutual verification of findings. One outcome of these investigations are my attempts at conceptualizing the specific form of trace left by the humans and the condition of remains. I define it as a vestige (vestigium), i.e. an imprint left on the surface of a material base that replicates the outline of a human body, or part of it, while retaining atomized organic traces of it.

Mary Beaudry's abstract

It’s a Woman Thing: Women’s Body-worn Implements and the Construction of Feminine Identity in Early America

In this paper I explore the significance of body-worn “tools” such as chatelaines, sewing scissors, and bodkins as emblems of women’s dominion over their households, pride in their sewing and embroidery skills, and of feminine identity. Such objects may or may not have been any given woman’s “favorite things.” They do, however, provide ways for us to understand aspects of personhood and the presentation of self, archaeological biographies and individual life courses, embodiment and corporeality, and the materiality of women’s experiences and interactions with seemingly everyday things.