Background
Olsen was born in a small fishing village in Finnmark, Norway.
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book
(In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects) Author: Bjornar Olsen published on (March, 2013)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XTBF8IQ/?tag=2022091-20
Archæology: The Discipline of Things
( Archaeology has always been marked by its particular ca...)
Archaeology has always been marked by its particular care, obligation, and loyalty to things. While archaeologists may not share similar perspectives or practices, they find common ground in their concern for objects monumental and mundane. This book considers the myriad ways that archaeologists engage with things in order to craft stories, both big and small, concerning our relations with materials and the nature of the past. Literally the science of old things,” archaeology does not discover the past as it was but must work with what remains. Such work involves the tangible mediation of past and present, of people and their cultural fabric, for things cannot be separated from society. Things are us. This book does not set forth a sweeping new theory. It does not seek to transform the discipline of archaeology. Rather, it aims to understand precisely what archaeologists do and to urge practitioners toward a renewed focus on and care for things.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520274172/?tag=2022091-20
In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects (Archaeology in Society) by Bjornar Olsen (2010-07-16)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K2OA5JY/?tag=2022091-20
In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects (Archaeology in Society)
(In much recent thinking, social and cultural realms are t...)
In much recent thinking, social and cultural realms are thought of as existing prior to―or detached from―things, materiality, and landscape. It is often assumed, for example, that things are entirely 'constructed' by social or cultural perceptions and have no existence in and of themselves. Bjornar Olsen takes a different position. Drawing on a range of theories, especially phenomenology and actor-network-theory, Olsen claims that human life is fully mixed up with things and that humanity and human history emerge from such relationships. Things, moreover, possess unique qualities that are inherent in our cohabitation with them―qualities that help to facilitate existential security and memory of the past. This important work of archaeological theory challenges us to reconsider our ideas about the nature of things, past and present, demonstrating that objects themselves possess a dynamic presence that we must take into account if we are to understand the world we and they inhabit.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0759119317/?tag=2022091-20
Bjornar Olsen
Edit Profileanthropologist archaeologist professor
Education
He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Tromsø in 1984 and was a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge 1985–1986.
Career
He is a Norwegian archaeologist who specializes in archaeological theory, material culture, museology, northern/Arctic archaeology. Olsen is a prominent figure in the turn to things, including symmetrical archaeology. He became full professor in 1991 (at the age of 33) and has since 1994 been professor of archaeology at the Institute of archaeology, University of Tromsø.
He is a fellow the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Olsen was a figure in the development of post-processualism and theoretical archaeology during the 1980s and 1990s and is now at the forefront of the development of new approaches to things, including symmetrical archaeology, and modern ruins in archaeology and material culture studies. He is also an international leader in the development of archaeological theory and Sámi prehistory/history.
Olsen has published 10 books (and close to 160 scientific papers), including Archaeology: The Discipline of Things (2012 with Michael Shanks (archaeologist), Timothy Webmoor and Christopher Witmore),, and Persistent memories: Pyramiden – a Soviet mining town in the High Arctic (2010, with Elin Andreassen and Hein Bjerck. See Pyramiden). Olsen is director of the Ruin Memories Project.
"Ruin Memories: Materiality, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past" is an international collaborative project that focuses on industrial ruins, abandoned fishing villages, war remains and mining sites in Norway, Russia, Iceland, Spain and the United States.
Works
book
-
In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects (Archaeology in Society)
(In much recent thinking, social and cultural realms are t...)
-
Archæology: The Discipline of Things
( Archaeology has always been marked by its particular ca...)
- (In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects) Author: Bjornar Olsen published on (March, 2013)
- In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects (Archaeology in Society) by Bjornar Olsen (2010-07-16)
-
In Defense of Things: Archaeology and the Ontology of Objects (Archaeology in Society)
