Joanna Brück, PhD

Professor, School of Archaeology

University College Dublin, Ireland

Abstract

Ireland is just beginning to come to terms with aspects of its difficult past, but this is very much a work in progress. Archaeology offers a unique lens through which to study the Irish War of Independence and Civil War (1919-1923), yet the potential of archaeological approaches to illuminate the events of the period, to speak powerfully of the texture of human emotion and experience, and to act as a medium for social repair in the present has not been fully realised. In this talk, I will explore various kinds of hauntings to consider how we might better understand and make peace with the past: firstly, taking a posthumanist perspective to examine exactly how it is that places (such as execution sites, safe houses or military barracks) come to have an aura or affective power in the present; secondly, examining how reported sightings of revolutionary ghosts require us to explore the stories of those who have been marginalised and rendered invisible in sanctioned narratives of heroic nationalism; and thirdly, addressing how attending to ghosts can (and must) be an ethical, future-oriented act for the archaeologist. This work contributes to broader research on how communities engage with the material residues of difficult histories, exploring how these are incorporated into practices of meaning-making, remembrance and forgetting in the present.

Bio

Joanna Brück is Professor of Archaeology at University College Dublin. Her research primarily focuses on the Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland. She has published extensively on gender and domestic architecture, mortuary practices and concepts of the self, and the social role of objects, including in her book, Personifying prehistory: relational ontologies in Bronze Age Britain and Ireland (Oxford, University Press 2019). Her current research project, funded by a European Research Council Advanced Grant, is on animals and society in Bronze Age Europe. She also works on the archaeology of the Irish revolutionary period (1916-1923), exploring how archaeology can provide insights into the experience, impact and legacies of conflict. She is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, an editor of the journal Archaeological Dialogues, and was previously Vice President of the Prehistoric Society.