Violence and Mortuary Landscapes: An Archaeological and Ethnographic Inquiry of Experience and Neglect in Eastern Cemetery, Louisville, KY

FAIN: RFW-286703-22

University of Louisville (Louisville, KY 40292-0001)
Thomas Jennings (Project Director: September 2021 to present)

Archaeological and ethnographic research at Eastern Cemetery in Louisville, KY, resulting in procedural guidance for historic cemeteries and traditional scholarly outputs (24 months).

In this research we examine how the current abandonment and past over-burying of Eastern Cemetery in Louisville, KY, compounds existing modes of inequality and invisibility for the living through layers of necroviolence enacted upon the dead. We propose to systematically document Eastern’s landscape and the extent of necroviolence incurred on the site and in the community through the use of surface (total station and LiDAR) and subsurface (GPR) survey and ethnography. It is the goal of this project to generate new methodological and humanistic knowledge that will contribute not only to future research and preservation at Eastern Cemetery but to other neglected historic cemetery sites across the U.S.