Symposium International

How Do We Live with the Meanings of the Past?

Archaeology and Semiotics: Reconstruction of Multiple Identities,

Universita Ca’ Foscari de Venise, 26 and 27 may

“How do we find (and live with) the meanings of the past?” is a two-days symposium on archaeological thought’s ways to generate meaning out of the material data collected via excavations, surveys, analyses.

This symposium addresses the methods through which archaeology envisages those data as signs of ancient identities and explores how we live today with the arising meanings of the past.

Often referred to as a discipline of “things” – i.e. materiality of things, objects making history, comfort of things – this symposium will deal with archaeology as a discipline of traces left by ancient communities’ practices.

Organised at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in the context of the Marie Curie Research Project IDENTIS, with the scientific collaboration of the Centro Internazionale Scienze Semiotiche “Umberto Eco” [ITA], the symposium explores identity interdisciplinarily, by intertwining semiotics and archaeology, while seeking an impact from anthropology, sociology, arts, music, architecture.

More information here