We periodically pull together pieces into thematic units as 'special issues'. Please see the details below if you are interested in putting something together in response to a call. If you are interested in curating a special issue, please get in touch. Pieces in a special issue will be considered and produced on a rolling basis for as long as the call is open. These pieces will be tagged with #special-issue-short-name-of-issue and all of the relevant contents can be viewed from that tag's page. These special issues may also (but not necessarily) be produced as paper editions via the Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.

To contribute to a special issue or to enquire, please email shawn dot graham at carleton dot ca with 'Epoiesen CFP' in the subject line; please give an indication of what you are thinking of contributing and how it might be realized on this site.

Current Calls

Archaeologies of the Near Future

This call for papers emerges from a session at Tag 2020; in its present form, it is one of a series of articles here at Epoiesen that you may find under the '#special-issue-futurearchae' tag at this journal.

The pieces in this special issue are united in that they ask the audience to imagine the role of archaeology 200 years from now, a future world in which we are the past. This call asks you to project yourselves, not into the past as archaeologists are wont to do, but into the near future – a future still two centuries away; a future none of us will ever know, but one not so distant to be unimaginable. What will that future hold for archaeology? Where will science have taken us? Will technology have made excavation redundant? Will there even be a recognisable discipline of archaeology, or will it have fragmented into multiple disciplines? Will archaeology still be taught in universities (will there be universities?)? Will there be a development-led archaeology? Perhaps our future world has no place for archaeology, no interest in the past – the hive-mind focused only on the present or future; archaeology a forgotten word for a vanished discipline.

Tales of utopian futures, of flying site vans, sentient trowels and autonomous digging devices are sought. As are stories of dystopic futures and Ballardian nightmares, extreme visions of population- and climate-wrecked worlds where the past is of no value or consequence. Also invited are accounts that sit somewhere in the middle – worlds, perhaps, in which people have learnt to adapt to their changing environments through the lens of archaeology – societies that have, for example, re-learnt to hunt and gather and tread lightly on the world.

Jim Leary
University of York
2023

Masthead Image: British Library Flickr stream. British Library digitised image from page 217 of "The History of Troop 'A,' New York Cavalry U.S.V, from May 2 to November 28, 1898 in the Spanish-American War. Published by the Troop for private circulation. With illustrations and map." https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11169678906