Authenticating Written Artefacts

When: Thursday, 9 November 2023, 2:30 pm CET – Friday, 10 November 2023, 6:30 pm CET
Where: Warburgstraße 26, 20354 Hamburg, Room 0001 (pavilion)

Some written artefacts can do more than others: For example, they identify a person (in the case of passports), transfer property (contracts), protect from harm (amulets) or command the awe of the beholder (artefacts in a museum). Written artefacts – i.e. artificial or natural objects with visual signs applied by humans – achieve their noteworthy status, functions, or power through complex and varying processes. We propose to collectively identify and analyse these processes as ‘authentication’ (other possible terms are validation or authorisation).

Authentication is based on all material and immaterial conditions, procedures and other aspects that provide a written artefact with authority or agency, as perceived by a certain social group or audience, and often according to established criteria or conventions. By analysing authentication, one can better understand how and why these particular written artefacts were produced, disseminated and used – and how they influenced their respective socio-cultural setting. Authentication as a social practice is shared by very different (if not all) cultures, both in various regions of the world and in different periods. Hence, studying authentication in a comparative perspective promises to yield insights into how and why authentication processes either worked similarly in different surroundings or changed over time.

Workshop Organisers:

Hannah Boeddecker, Elsa Clavé, Claudia Colini, Ulla Kypta, and Michael Kohs