It’s a happy coincidence that my colleagues, collaborators, and friends Grace Erny and Dimitri Nakassis (along with Laura E. Heath-Stout) published the results of their work to understand the demographics of the authors who publish in the American Journal of Archaeology at the very moment that I was finishing up the short study of my… Read More →
Like most academics, I worry a good bit about time management. I’m easily distracted, over extended, and generally prefer to dabble than to really “get stuck into a project.” This probably accounts for my somewhat discursive writing style and my lack of forensic or, to be honest, conventional academic rigor. To make matters worse, I prefer… Read More →
There comes a time in the semester, especially the spring semester, where I find myself just treading water and trying to keep my head above the waves. This is usually the result of grading, various projects coming in for landings, reading for class, manuscript reviews, and the typical day-to-day work of being alive. It’s during… Read More →
I’ve spent most of this academic year working to bring a handful of projects to publication. This is not always the most creative work. In fact, it often involves heeding the recommendations of reviewers by making small adjustments, adding or deleting text, gently massaging an idea here and reorganizing an argument there. The best part… Read More →
I have a phobia of reading old books. It’s irrational as most phobia are, but nevertheless guides my actions to an embarrassing extent. As a result, it took a particular nudge from my buddy Kostis Kourelis (and a generous copy of the book) to will myself to read Kevin Lynch’s What Time Is This Place?… Read More →
The start of the semester is almost provokes me to reflect. As always, I’m forced to at least consider the hopeless question: what am I doing here? While I’ve been at universities for my entire adult life, I continue to struggle to feel at home in these institutions. Part of it is because I’ve struggled… Read More →
This week has become more hectic than I would have wished, but mostly it’s hectic with good things. I’m looking forward to heading to Fargo tomorrow for the Northern Great Plains History Conference and pleased that some of the work that I put into cleaning up data from the Michigan State Excavations at Isthmia is… Read More →
This week has been a very difficult one for my Native American colleagues and students. The University of North Dakota announced that they had begun the repatriation process on a collection of artifacts and ancestors discovered over the last six months on campus. I’ve been a small part of this process and I’ve been overwhelmed by the experience and especially… Read More →
One of the goals that I had in revising my book manuscript over the past year was to cite more women authors.This was partly in response to critiques from peer reviewers, but also because it is the right thing to do. Citational politics is part of academic life and the growing interest in quantitative assessment (various… Read More →
Like most of the world, I’m anxiously reading about the rise of the latest COVID variant, Ba.5, and worrying about how it will impact my health, the health of people in my community, and our daily life. I’m already hearing about the consequences of this new, highly transmissible variant, on the operations of summer programs,… Read More →
Last week, I got together with an old buddy for dinner and he asked me to talk a bit more about the idea of slow especially in light of my post “Slow at 50.” Since I’m restarting the archaeological fieldwork aspect of my professional (albeit as a study season), it seemed like a reasonable time… Read More →
I submitted grades, my summer plans are coming into focus, and I’m almost ready to decamp for the Mediterranean for the first time in two years. I feel like everything is going on at once, and this is more or less a good thing and it feels like a solid backdrop for a Three Things… Read More →
I turn 50 this week and I’ve been thinking a lot about what this means. After all, a half-century doing stuff feels like it should mean something, right? So I decided to do some little blog essays mostly to reflect on my professional (and occasional personal) life at 50. Yesterday I blogged about “ Fun” and on Wednesday, “Collaborating”, on Tuesday “Slow at… Read More →
I turn 50 this week and I’ve been thinking a lot about what this means. After all, a half-century doing stuff feels like it should mean something, right? So I decided to do some little blog essays mostly to reflect on my professional (and occasional personal) life at 50. Yesterday I blogged about being “Slow at 50” and on Monday, “Not Full… Read More →
I turn 50 this week and I’ve been thinking a lot about what this means. After all, a half-century doing stuff feels like it should mean something, right? So I decided to do some little blog essays mostly to reflect on my professional (and occasional personal) life at 50. Yesterday I blogged about being “Not Full at 50” and today I… Read More →
I turn 50 this week and I’ve been thinking a lot about what this means. After all, a half-century doing stuff feels like it should mean something, right? So I decided to do some little blog essays mostly to reflect on my professional (and occasional personal) life at 50. A few years ago, people in the… Read More →
