Aimee Genova
Mary Seeger O’Boyle Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2021-2022
- DegreePh.D., History, University of Chicago, 2019DissertationStrategies of Resistance - Cretan Archaeology and Political Networks during the late 19th and early 20th CenturyResearch ProjectIn Times of War and Crisis: Regional Identities and Greek Archaeology On a Global Scale
A.M. Genova is an intellectual historian of the early and modern Mediterranean Basin, with particular expertise in the socio-political history of the archaeological institutions and practices in Crete of the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Her work is based on comparative archival research on the development of Cretan and Macedonian archaeology during times of war and political dissent (prior to their unification with Greece in 1913). Trained as an anthropologist and ancient historian, she holds an M.A. in Anthropology from Northern Illinois University, and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. In addition to her past tenure as the M. Alison Frantz Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, she has excavation experience in the Peloponnese and in Salemi, Sicily. As part of her postdoctoral engagements, her research has been supported as a Library Research Fellow at Princeton University (Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies), California State University, Sacramento (Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection), and most recently as a Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) in Washington, DC.
About the Research Project
In Times of War and Crisis: Regional Identities and Greek Archaeology On a Global Scale
This project builds on my previous research on Cretan archaeology from 1878-1913, incorporating new comparative work on Ottoman Macedonia of the same period. Drawing on a range of archival sources and government-related reports, my book project offers a nuanced evaluation of the disciplinary history of Greek archaeology and the processes that fueled the archaeological excavations in contested, geographic spaces. By documenting transformations in the wider geopolitical context of Greek nationhood, my project traces the history of archaeological practices in Crete and Macedonia, which includes but is not limited to antiquity-related discourse that emerged during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Russo-Turkish War (1877-8), Greco-Turkish War (1897), and Balkan Wars (1912-3) – before their eventual unification with Greece (1913). As such, I interrogate not only the political function of archaeology as a possible form of non-violent resistance during times of dissent but – more specifically – how excavation activities in Crete and Macedonia could serve as acts of resistance prior to their unification with Greece at various points throughout. Teasing out the similarities and differences between comparable case studies reveals what is singular about Cretan and Macedonian archaeology under Ottoman rule.