Dear all,

Due to the fact that there was no PGF Seminar last week, we are pleased to announce that we have not one, not three, but two(!) seminars for you to enjoy this Wednesday! We hope to see you there, or at one of the other seminars being given this week!

Best wishes,

The PGF Committee

PGF SEMINARS:

Date/Time: Wednesday 22 November 2017, 13:00. Venue: Room 1.03, Armstrong Building.

‘BACKWATER ECONOMIES? A FOODWAY FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING WETLAND WORLDVIEWS IN THE PREHISTORIC PAST‘ BY PHD CANDIDATE FLOOR HUISMAN (DURHAM UNIVERSITY)

One of the major problems we face when trying to study past worldviews is the way in which our own, modern western worldview influences our research, from the questions we ask, to our final interpretations. Within the sub-discipline of wetland archaeology, for instance, we often ask why past communities chose to live in such marginal landscapes. We assume that wetlands were ‘special’ in some way, either as ‘ritual’ or ‘sacred’ places, or as resource rich environments. We assume a particular worldview amongst the wetland communities living there, one focussed on ‘the wild’, which sets them apart from contemporary, ‘domestic’ ‘dryland’ communities. Yet rather than assuming the presence of such opposing worldviews, we should assess to what extent the landscape or environment in which people lived truly affected their worldview and the formation of particular community identities. This paper will explore how we may be able to do this by considering prehistoric communities’ (inter)relation with the environment through a study of past foodways and environmental change. It will present the preliminary results of my PhD research which examines the use of domestic and wild plant and animals in relation to a changing environment in and around the later prehistoric East Anglian Fens (c. 4000 BC-40 AD). It asks if and when a wetland worldview and accompanying identities came into being as the East Anglian Fens changed from a dryland basin into Britain’s largest wetland. Thus, this paper explores a new approach to understanding past worldviews, by integrating archaeological with environmental data. It is hoped this will allow us to move beyond our modern worldviews and gain a better understanding of past worldviews and the way these shaped communities.

AND

‘A CONTROVERSIAL TRIBUNICIAN STATUTE: THE PLEBISCITUM CLAUDIANUM AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR (218 BC)’ BY PHD CANDIDATE ROBERTO CIUCCIOVE (NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY)

The Plebiscitum Claudianum was controversial tribunician bill, which dealt with very significant economic matters especially related to sea-trade, involving also, at its very core, the political relations between the senatorial elite and the emerging equestrian order. The year 218 BC represented a crucial moment in the history of Rome and the whole Mediterranean world. We are at the very beginning of the Second Punic War, a conflict that will reshape the politicalmilitary order for many decades to come. In the same year a lex Claudia was proposed and passed. As usual, there will be refreshments in the form of tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided.

HISTORY SEMINAR: ‘THE SACRED AND THE SATIATED: HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND THE LIMINAL SPACE OF BLACK RESISTANCE’ BY PEGGY BRUNACHE (UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE)

Date/Time: Wednesday 22 November 2017, 16:00. Venue: Room 1.05, Armstrong Building.

Traditional scholarship of the Black diaspora has predominantly focused on the examination of primary and secondary historical documents. Moreover, the historiography of slavery of the French Antilles, for example, has been weaker than other regions, especially when compared to British and American counterparts. More recent historical studies have shifted to critically engage larger questions as to how enslaved and free black communities actively participated in strategies to either escape or circumvent gendered and racialized systems of oppression. Since the late 1980s, historical archaeology has risen to the challenge to provide a unique contribution to further our understanding of past lifeways of the Black Atlantic via engendered methodological frameworks for studying artefact patterning and examining the nature of material culture. This presentation hopes to progress critical dialogue on Black agency and choices by engaging place, material culture, and space, through an alternative understanding of conceptual sites of conflict and resistance. I will consider two geographically disparate 19th century archaeological sites, one in the French Caribbean and the other in North America, associated with the slave economy to consider new transformative theories on Black resistance as liminal space for identity formation and societal transformation. This production of knowledge serves as an exploration for re-historicising the past through an intersectionality of structurally hierarchical categories of difference in the archaeological study of enslaved Africans and their descendants. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/seminars/item/thesacredandthesatiated.html

CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY RESEARCH SEMINAR: ‘PHILOLOGICAL NETWORKS: EDITING THE CLASSICAL TEXT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CAMBRIDGE’ BY DR KATHERINE EAST (NEWCASTLE)

Date/Time: Wednesday 22 November 2017, 17:00. Venue: Room 2.50, Armstrong Building. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/seminars/item/philologicalnetworks.html

ARCHAEOLOGY SEMINAR: ‘TEXTILES AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC IN THE 18TH CENTURY’ BY PROFESSOR GIORGIO RIELLO (WARWICK)

Date/Time: Thursday 23 November 2017, 16:00. Venue: Room 2.16, Armstrong Building. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/seminars/item/textilesandtradeintheatlanticinthe18thcentury.html

EVENT: ‘MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND THE POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN AT FIFTY’ BY DR KERRY TAYLOR (ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, THE CITADEL, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, USA)

Date/Time: Tuesday 21 November 2017, 18:00. Venue: Room G.33, Barbara Strang Teaching Centre.

A specialist in twentieth-century US, labour, African American and oral history, Dr Kerry Taylor came to the Citadel after serving as the Associate Director of the Southern Oral History Program in Chapel Hill. He co-edited volume 4 and volume 5 of the Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. (University of California Press, 2000 and 2005) and American Labor and the Cold War (Rutgers University Press, 2004). In addition to directing The Citadel Oral History Program, Taylor has been extensively involved in grassroots organising in Charleston and across the South, particularly in the “Fight for 15” movement to organise fast food workers for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union recognition. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/events/item/martinlutherkingjrandthepoorpeoplescampaignatfifty.html

EXHIBITION: ‘PATHS ACROSS WATER: LOST STORIES OF TYNESIDE AND THE CARIBBEAN’

Until 26 November. Venue: Old Low Light in North Shields

Come for the history, the poetry table, the oral stories, a video artwork reacting to shifts in the wind outside, a story-telling booth that will create both an oral archive and a digitally mixed soundscape exploring people’s responses to the sea and to the paths of migration connecting the North East with not only the Caribbean but also the rest of the world. And so much more.

MUSEUM EXHIBITION: ‘FRONTIER FASHION: GLASS BANGLES OF THE ROMAN NORTH’

Until 3 January 2018. Venue: Great North Museum

A mini exhibition Frontier Fashion: Glass Bangles of the Roman North that focuses on Newcastle University archaeologist Dr Tatiana Ivleva’s research on Roman glass bangles in Britain. Tatiana is particularly interested in the popularity of glass bangles in Northern Britain, on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall. A small number of fascinating artefacts are on show in the display which is taking place in the new temporary exhibition space, formerly the Mithraeum. Further details can be found here.