Edward R. Swenson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, St. George Campus, University of Toronto

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Ed Swenson

Dr. Edward R. Swenson

PhD Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, 2004

MA Anthropology, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, 1998

BA History and Archaeology, Cornell University, Ithaca NY, 1995

Contact:
(416) 946-5186
edward.swenson@utoronto.ca

Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto
19 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S2, Canada
Office: AP 504

Current Graduate Students:

Guy Duke (PhD)
Camila Guarim (PhD)
Giles Spence-Morrow (PhD)
Katrina Joosten (MA)
Sally Lynch (MSc)
Jessica Thiele (MSc)

Past Graduate Students:

Katrina Gataveckas (MSc) 2011
Michael Taylor (MA) 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Research

Measuring the wallsDr. Swenson has been engaged in archaeological field research in the Jequetepeque Valley of northern Peru since 1997, and he is currently directing excavations of the large urban complex of Cañoncillo (Proyecto Jatanca-Huaca Colorada) located on the south side of the valley.  A central objective of the research is to interpret how long-term processes of urbanization (400 BC-AD 800) were constituted by the everyday practices, identity politics, and religious values of Late Formative and Moche communities.  Field investigations are designed to gauge how transformations in the construction of public architecture differently correlated with changes in ritual activity, economic production, consumption habits, and the configuration and experience of domestic space.  Analysis of the historical interrelationships of different regimes of practice, as ultimately mediated by the built environment, will permit interpretation of the cultural particulars of urban power relations in the Jequetepeque region.  Therefore, our research intends to make contributions to understanding the Ed and a sacrificial victimpre-industrial city, violence and subject formation, the archaeology of ritual and monumental architecture, and the politics of landscape and social memory. The Jatanca-Huaca Colorada Project has involved the participation of a number of undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Toronto, and other institutions in Canada, Peru, and the United States.

Please also see the Proyecto Jatanca-Huaca Colorada site featured on the University of Toronto Archaeology Centre webpage.

Teaching and Research Interests

archaeological method and theory; Andean prehistory; Moche civilization; archaeology of ritual and performance; religion and ideology; power and violence; rise of complex society; pre-industrial city; urbanism; landscape history; architecture and monumentalism; human-environment relations; politics of the past; ancient Mesoamerica; Khmer civilization; cultural anthropology; social memory; subject formation; GIS and spatial analysis; ceramic analysis