Industrial production has fundamentally remade the globe and reorganized social life, even as it has generated countless commodities and mountains of waste. This course considers how an archaeological emphasis on materials and the built environment can elucidate industrial histories and clarify how industrialization, the rise of factory production, and the ecological consequences of those processes has restructured social and political life across the last three centuries. In the course, students consider archaeological evidence for industrial precursors, engage with theorizations of industrial production, and examine how archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the sites and social worlds of industry through case studies ranging from Caribbean plantations, slaughterhouses of the Canadian prairie, and lumber mills in the Pacific Northwest.
3-5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
Industrial production has fundamentally remade the globe and reorganized social life, even as it has generated countless commodities and mountains of waste. This course considers how an archaeological emphasis on materials and the built environment can elucidate industrial histories and clarify how industrialization, the rise of factory production, and the ecological consequences of those processes has restructured social and political life across the last three centuries. In the course, students consider archaeological evidence for industrial precursors, engage with theorizations of industrial production, and examine how archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the sites and social worlds of industry through case studies ranging from Caribbean plantations, slaughterhouses of the Canadian prairie, and lumber mills in the Pacific Northwest.
Offered in Spring 2027 at Stanford University.