A Case for Buried Culture

From an Unknown Known to a Known Unknown

Bibliographic Data

ID6014656
AuthorsAssaf Nativ (0000-0003-1637-1765, University of Haifa, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume2
Issue3
Pages74-94
Publication date2022-07-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHumans (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2673-9461 • E-ISSN: 2673-9461
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/humans2030006
OpenAlexW4285594554
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited52

This paper makes a case for Buried Culture—humanly modified packages of sediments and artifacts. Specifically, it argues that Buried Culture amounts to an a-social, literally posthuman, cultural being. The argument proceeds through three main steps. Firstly, drawing on the prototypical example of landfills, it demonstrates that while ontically solid, Buried Culture is epistemically vacuous. Secondly, placing it between sedimentology and archaeology, a diagnosis is offered: The epistemic vehicles at our disposal either acknowledge Buried Culture’s existence as a proper being or appreciate its cultural qualities, but not both. Thirdly, an aesthetically oriented approach is proposed, adopting the analytical reasoning of the art critic as a means to straddle this gap. To illustrate this, a small-scale case study is presented, concerned with an early 20th-century landfill near Tel Aviv, Israel

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Business · Epistemology · Geography · Posthuman · Scale (ratio · Sociology · Straddle · Chemistry · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Public Spaces through Art

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access