Traumwerk Website

Victor Buchli, Reader in Material Culture, University College London

The Traumwerk website is a brilliant project started by Mike Shanks and his students at Stanford University that experiments with the boundaries of archaeological work and interpretation and wider questions in material culture. In particular there a number of projects hosted on the site that are of interest to students of material culture in general: These are the archaeology of the contemporary past project, the china garbology initiative with Bill Rathje, and the three rooms project by Mike Shanks. In addition there are numerous experimental projects based on soundscapes and virtual environments which involve archaeoloigsts, artists and other scholars.
The cultures of contact and the Mercedes Benz Daimler initiative are also well worth exploring especially the Mercedes project which brings together, material culture studies, anthropology, archaeology and design together. Particularly interesting is the report on the recent symposium with Rorty, Harraway and others on the significance of Whitehead for the philosophy of science with particular relevance to material culture studies. A number of the areas of the site are password protected but interested parties can certainly arrange for access and are invited to participate.
Link: Traumwerk.stanford.edu