Undisciplined theory

Abstract

Matthew Johnson's engaging paper raises a number of critical issues for contemporary archaeological reflection. The paper takes as a given the existence of archaeological theory as a disciplinary tradition of scholarly engagement, as a social fact of the vita archaeologica. But Johnson resists, rightly I think, the temptation to define ‘the archaeological’ intellectually, in reference to a discrete analytical terrain over which archaeology holds sovereignty. As a result, a considerable weight is put upon what we might think of as the sociology of theoretical work – concrete practices of theoretical production and reproduction located within institutions such as the university and the department. While Matthew's paper largely focuses on the gaps within the current constellatory field between the ethos of archaeological training and the pathos that drives our theoretical agenda, in these brief remarks I want to suggest a more undisciplined sense of archaeological theory, one rooted less in the field itself and more in a historically and socially shifting understanding of the pastness of the object world.