Featuring Faculty with Professor April Beisaw In-Person
Please join us as Vassar Anthropology Professor April Beisaw discusses her recently published new book, The Archaeology of American Protest.
Year after year, Americans gather in iconic places of freedom such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC demanding yet again that the nation live up to its ideals of equality, prosperity, and self-determination. Using archaeology to explore the past 400 years of American protest history, Professor Beisaw, and her coauthor Dania Jordan-Talley, juxtapose the materials used by activists with the weaponry used to suppress them.
The Archaeology of American Protest shows how protests are integral to the American experience and demonstrates how communal and public actions aimed at changing the status quo occur in moments of opportunity, while decades later these protests can take on new meanings and be seen in retrospect as moments of pride. Documenting protest sites and material culture can preserve the heritage of social activism, set realistic expectations for social change, and inspire actions for better futures.