Florian Ostrowski

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I have studied History, Prehistory and Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna (Austria), where I graduated in 2019. I could enrich my studies with terms abroad in Warsaw (Poland), Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria), Tübingen (Germany) and by doing an internship at the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C (USA). Additionally, I could gain some archaeological experience in several projects in Austria (e.g. Pile dwellings in Upper Austria) and foreign countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Sultanate of Oman). Currently, I am a PhD candidate and scientific employee at the Institute of History at the University of Vienna.

Research interests: In my research, I am trying to combine my historical and archaeological academic background. I am interested in Material Culture, Cultural History, Archaeology, Heritage Studies, Media Studies and Theory.

Current research project: Archäologie als Medienkultur – Die mediale Konstruktion von archäologischer Wirklichkeit am Beispiel der jungsteinzeitlichen Pfahlbauten [Archaeology as media culture – The media construction of archaeological reality exemplified on Neolithic Pile Dwellings].
In the doctoral thesis, I show the media construction of archaeological reality at the interface between research, material remains and specific publics. The dissertation is concerned about the role of media and media representations in the creation of archaeological meaning. In the first part, I examine the medial way of archaeological thought and work and how objects get their sense. In the second part, I investigate the media display of archaeological interpretation. I exemplify those human-object-relations by discourse analysis and a close reading of mainly non-written representations of Neolithic Pile Dwellings in Austria. The dissertation is localized interdisciplinary between History, Archaeology and Material Culture Studies and within a range of narrative, discourse and media theory. The doctoral thesis aims to underline the medial character of archaeological objects and to describe archaeology as media culture, where it needs discourse and media representation to make those objects useful (for meaning and identity).

Publications:

  • Thracian Archaeology and national identity in communist Bulgaria: Exhibition-making as an ideological pattern. In: Emily R. Hanscam, James T. Koranyi (ed.), Digging Politics: The Ancient Past and Contested Present in East-Central Europe, forthcoming.
  • Vom Teufel zum Satanismus. Der Wandel der Teufelsbilder im musikalischen Genre Heavy Metal, Riga 2019. [From devil to satanism. The changing image of the devil in Heavy Metal music]