Performative methods are playing an increasingly prominent role in research into historical production processes, materials, and bodily knowledge and sensory skills, and in forms of education and public engagement in classrooms and museums. This book offers, for the first time, sustained, interdisciplinary reflections on performative methods, variously known as Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Replication, Reproduction and Reworking (RRR) practices across the fields of history of science, archaeology, art history, conservation, musicology and anthropology. Each of these fields has distinct histories, approaches, tools and research questions. Researchers in the historical disciplines have used reconstructions to learn about the materials and practices of the past, while anthropologists and ethnographers have more often studied the re-enactments themselves, participating in these performances as engaged observers. In this book, an interdisciplinary group of authors bring their experiences of RRR practices within their discipline into conversation with RRR practices in other disciplines, providing a basis for interdisciplinary cross-fertilization.

Debating Contemporary Approaches to the History of Science explores the main themes, problems and challenges currently at the top of the discipline's methodological agenda. In its chapters, established and emerging scholars introduce and discuss new approaches to the history of science and revisit older perspectives which remain crucial. Each chapter is followed by a critical commentary from another scholar in the field and the author's response. The volume looks at such topics as the importance of the 'global', 'digital', 'environmental', and 'posthumanist' turns for the history of science, and the possibilities for the field of moving beyond a focus on ideas and texts towards active engagement with materials and practices. It also addresses important issues about the relationship between history of science, on the one hand, and philosophy of science, history of knowledge and ignorance studies, on the other. With its innovative format, this volume provides an up-to-date, authoritative overview of the field, and also explores how and why the history of science is practiced. It is essential reading for students and scholars eager to keep a finger on the pulse of what is happening in the history of science today, and to contribute to where it might go next.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of experimental approaches to the study of media histories and their cultures. Doing media archaeological experiments, such as historical re-enactments and hands-on simulations with media historical objects, helps us to explore and better understand the workings of past media technologies and their practices of use. By systematically refl ecting on the methodological underpinnings of experimental media archaeology as a relatively new approach in media historical research and teaching, this book aims to serve as a practical handbook for doing media archaeological experiments. Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Practice is the twin volume to Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Theory, authored by Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever.

Many study the reception of Classical Antiquity today. But why, how and from what conceptual or disciplinary frame? A number of selected representative chapters on these questions illustrate the remarkable diversity and vitality of Classical Receptions Studies and set the agenda for future research.

In recent years, walking has emerged as a methodological tool and as a conceptually exciting point of departure across a range of disciplines and practices. This volume explores walking as a form of embodied research practice that offers fresh perspectives on key contemporary debates and areas of interest. These include the climate emergency and the debate around the Anthropocene, decolonial thinking and the struggle for social justice, feminist and queer walking methodologies, and the notion of the ‘infraordinary’ and practices of everyday life. Contributions to this volume are by scholars, artists and practitioners drawn from a wide range of disciplines and fields, and from across the Global South and North. An overarching theme of the volume is the manner in which the act of walking brings the body into presence as a material part of the research process, and the forms of attentiveness that this encourages. Another theme is the intimate connection between the act of walking and the act of writing. As familiar landscapes change under the weight of Anthropogenic environmental change, walking becomes an act of witnessing and a spur to action. Rather than being a singular activity, walking itself is understood as a socially, economically and politically constructed and contested act. This volume will serve as a source of inspiration to readers from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences who are interested in walking methodologies and in new and sustainable research practices.

This book offers a plea to take the materiality of media technologies and the sensorial and tacit dimensions of media use into account in the writing of the histories of media and technology. In short, it is a bold attempt to question media history from the perspective of an experimental media archaeology approach. It offers a systematic reflection on the value and function of hands-on experimentation in research and teaching. Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Theory is the twin volume to Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Practice, authored by Tim van der Heijden and Aleksander Kolkowski.