The Moesgaard Autumn Lecture welcomes our new MA students of Sustainable Heritage, Human Security, Archaeology and Anthropology to Moesgaard Campus, marking the end of their Introduction Week. Moesgaard Lectures are organised by the Research Programmes of Anthropology (RPA) and Materials-Culture-Heritage (MCH) and features speakers whose cross-disciplinary scholarship help us reflect and engage with the research fields and disciplines at Moesgaard.

The lecture will be followed by a reception.

Abstract

Natures have for a long time been defined, managed and valued as heritage. Traditionally, particular focus has been on natural phenomena of aesthetic and/or scientific value and landscapes that boast of „rare“ or „outstanding“ features. The ongoing research project Relics of Nature is investigating how current challenges, climate change and the anticipation of loss are altering such traditional understandings of natural heritage. This lecture will reflect on some results from the project, asking: What is natural heritage in the Anthropocene? How are natural processes of change and uncertainty affected by a growing fear for loss? And how can lessons from cultural heritage studies be employed in attempts to understand and activate natural heritage as venues of critical care and climate activism?

Bio

Þóra Pétursdóttir is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Oslo, where she teaches contemporary archaeology, heritage studies and and archaeological theory. Her research combines contemporary archaeology, heritage studies and environmental humanities and draws mainly on theoretical insights from New Matierialisms and Posthumanities. Her previous work has focused on (among other matters) the topic of material memory and suggested a more constructive understanding of processes of decay/ruination/fragmentation in heritage contexts. She has also explored understandings of the Anthropocene in archaeology and reflected on how climate change challenges archaeological thinking and practice. Her work has always transgressed and problematised the boundary between nature and culture. This divide, and the “nature of heritage” writ large, is also the focus of her current research where notions of sustainability and more-than-human ethics are of central concern. Þóra is the editor of Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past (with B. Olsen, 2014), After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics (with B. Olsen, M. Burström and C. Desilvey, 2020), Heritage Eecologies (with T.R. Bangstad 2021) and the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Plastics (with Genevieve Godin, Estelle Praet and John Schofield). Þóra is currently the PI of the research project Relics of Nature www.relicsofnature.com.