Name: Susan Pollock
Title: Professor Emerita
Email: spollock@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Research Interests
- archaeology of Mesopotamia and Iran
- feminism and gender-based approaches
- archaeology of modernity and the contemporary past
- politics of archaeological practice
- households, communities and political economy
- commensality and food-related practices
Education
MA, PhD, University of Michigan
BA, Cornell University
Background
My long-term research interests are in the village, early state and urban societies of western Asia, with a focus on Mesopotamia and Iran but also extending to Turkey and Turkmenistan. In the past decade, I have also become increasingly involved in an archaeology of the 20th century in and around Berlin (Germany). In the framework of excavations at forced labor and prisoner-of-war camps as well as a research institute that was heavily involved in building the scientific basis for Nazi racist ideology, I have explored issues of suffering and violence both in the past and in archaeological practice.
Recent publications
Pollock, Susan, Reinhard Bernbeck, Lena Appel, Anna K. Loy and Stefan Schreiber. 2020. Are All Things Created Equal? The Incidental in Archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 30(1): 141-149.
Pollock, Susan. 2020. Archäologie, Zeugenschaft und Counter-Forensics. In Archäologie der Moderne. Standpunkte und Perspektiven, edited by Fritz Jürgens and Ulrich Müller, pp. 271-287. Historische Archäologie Sonderband 2020. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt.
Pollock, Susan, Reinhard Bernbeck, and Birgül Öğüt, eds. 2019. Looking Closely. Excavations at Monjukli Depe, Turkmenistan, 2010 – 2014, Volume I. Leiden: Sidestone Press.
Pollock, Susan. 2019. Food-Related Practices in Late 4th Millennium BCE Iran and Mesopotamia: A Comparative Perspective. In Arslantepe. I. International Archaeology Symposium Proceedings, edited by Neslihan Durak and Marcella Frangipane, pp. 143-155. Malatya: Inönü University Press.
Pollock, Susan and Reinhard Bernbeck. 2019. Reflections on Survey and Surveillance in the Archaeology of Western Asia. Origini 42: 93-108.
Pollock, Susan. 2016. The Subject of Suffering. American Anthropologist 118(4): 726-741.
