In 1979, TAG was founded to explore interdisciplinary theoretical topics and its relevance to archaeological interpretations. Thirty years later, perhaps it is time to stop and critically evaluate where we are and where we want to go. Thus, to inaugurate a return to TAG’s roots, this plenary session provokes the big question: where are we taking theories about the relationships between people and things?
Archaeology has long developed a distinctive research tradition for understanding the complex relationships of people and things. Dedicated to the ‘study of old things’ by contemporary people, archaeology’s strength and singular contribution lie with developing insights into this fundamental relationship. Attending to the interactions and co-dependencies between people and things is a common enough denominator, as much as a source of division.
Archaeologists tackle this fundamental relationship between people and things from varying perspectives, tagging the components differently, whether as materiality or material culture, objects or things, dialectics or behavior, objectification or mixtures, textual sign or symbolic storage, phenotype or drift. Ultimately, we are all having a conversation about one topic: people and things. Indeed, theorizing, developing practices for recovering, and interpreting the relationship between people and things constitute one of our greatest contributions to other disciplines and one of our appeals to larger society. Drawing upon this long and distinctive research tradition which spans the discipline’s many theoretical camps, this session will assemble a team of scholars from both archaeology and cognate fields for a debate about the future of things.
Amongst others, speakers at the plenary session will include: Steve Shennan, Michael Schiffer, Webb Keane and Rosemary Joyce.

Further details, relevant deadlines and contact details can be found at the TAG-US 2009 website.
Session proposals are still being accepted until 15 November.
A list of currently proposed sessions may be found here.