"Subversive Poetics": Mary Beaudry's Archaeology of Language

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "“Historical Archaeology with Canon on the Side, Please”: In Honor of Mary C. Beaudry (1950-2020)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Mary Beaudry practiced the kind of historical archaeology defined not merely by the presence of texts, but by the excavation of language. Departing from the cognitive archaeology of Jim Deetz, but retaining his sense for spinning a good yarn, her interest was more in using words than reconstructing ideas. From reading probate inventories as "words for things" to reading "the subversive poetics of housework", she followed Mary Douglas's call for writing "in the active voice". This paper reads Mary Beaudry’s archaeology as a linguistic, literary, conversational strategy wrought with her fingers on computer keys as if they were thimbles, scissors, knitting needles. Mary's archaeology collapsed speech acts into everyday practices like needlework and sewing. As if her subversive poetics could operate at the scale of cities, of landscapes, of oceans, of academic disciplines. Embroidering the past yes, clothing it; “engendering” it even; but also taking in the piecework of mending.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• “Historical Archaeology with Canon on the Side, Please”: In Honor of Mary C. Beaudry (1950-2020)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology