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Archaeology Division
Retrospective - Oral Presentation Session
Bettina Arnold
Professor
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
The parallel evolution of archaeological approaches to gender in the US and Europe has been documented in several studies and collections of essays. However, so far no attempt has been made to compare the two paradigms by training an analytical lens on the scholarly output and career trajectories of academics trained in one context whose research takes place in the other. Janet Levy’s career is an example of the challenges and opportunities represented by exposure to and training in two intersecting but ontologically different ways of thinking about the past. Her scholarly output reflects the complexities of reconciling those differences and exemplifies an ongoing tension between the scholarly paradigms in Europe and the US that are partly the result of their historical and anthropological origins, respectively. This paper will attempt a comparison of these dual (and sometimes dueling) academic spheres from a biographical and autobiographical perspective, with an emphasis on archaeological approaches to gender in past societies.