I am taking some time off from writing this week to catch up on some reading and take a moment to breath. That doesn’t mean, though, that writing doesn’t happen. One of the ironic challenges of living in post-literate times is that we read and write more than ever. I have two abstracts that I… Read More →
Last week, I was able to send my book manuscript to my publisher for review. This means that my book now has a (tentative) title: Archaeology, Photography, Oil: Workforce Housing in the Bakken. This means that I now have some time to work on other projects. For example, yesterday, I did pre-production work on most… Read More →
I had a nice time at the 2025 ASOR annual meeting. It was a good chance to catch up with friends, scheme some schemes, and hear some papers. In hindsights, I’d have liked to spend more time in sessions and less time in meetings, but at least the meetings that I had were broadly productive. … Read More →
One of my not-so-secret habits is that I write three days a week in a little notebook. The notebook isn’t where I write my most personal thoughts (I learned a long time ago that deeply personal thoughts are more or less a waste of my scant supply of cognition), but rather a secret blog where… Read More →
Over the past few years, I’ve been editor of a little, century-old, book series for ASOR: the Annual. From time to time, I get asked whether a proposed title would be appropriate for this series. My general response is “sure!” A brief perusal of the series’s history shows that we’ve published all kinds of things.… Read More →
Each year, the ASOR Annual meeting seems to get a little longer as my social obligations, professional obligations, and academic commitments pile up. That said, it is almost always pleasant, educational, and productive. Papers This years meeting gave me a chance to catch up with some colleagues who I only see at either the ASOR… Read More →
Lately, I’ve struggled a bit to find the enjoyment in writing. I’m not exactly sure what the deal is. Perhaps I’ve been writing too much technical stuff and not enough creative stuff. Maybe I’m just feeling a bit like I’m on a treadmill or writing too far ahead of my reading. Whatever the reason, I’m… Read More →
Spring break is almost over and I’m not sure that I got what I wanted to do done yet, but I’m still going to take a couple of days to recharge my batteries by watching some boxing and F1 while I catch up on some grading, finish a peer review, and maybe read something for… Read More →
Today’s post is as much an advertisement as anything else and for that, as always, I apologize. On Thursday evening, I’m giving a paper to the Friends of ASOR, which is a bit like the AIA lecture series. The paper will celebrate 20 years at the ancient harbor of Pyla-Koutsopetria on Cyprus and officially mark… Read More →
As readers of this blog know, my colleague Kevin McKeough and I successfully submitted a proposal for a workshop on pseudoarchaeology at the 2024 ASOR annual meeting. The workshop’s short (10 minute) papers will center around a series of common questions that we asked all submitters to consider: 1. What are the intellectual, social, political,… Read More →
Over the past twenty years, New Years Day has become more than simply a celebration of a new beginnings, it is has come to coincide with Public Domain Day! And this year’s Public Domain Day is a particularly notable one because it finally features the arrival of Mickey Mouse (at last as he appears in… Read More →
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking a bit about publishing and ASOR. I serve as editor of the Annual of ASOR (AASOR) which is the organization’s longest running book series. It stands alongside ASOR’s Archaeological Report Series (ARS) as the two book series published by ASOR. The ARS is currently looking for a… Read More →
It’s been a while since we’ve done a three things Thursday and since I’m feeling like I have a bunch of little things starting to back up in my inbox. Thing The First I was pleased to see that the interview that I recorded with Tristan Boyle for his The Modern Myth podcast has appeared. You can listen… Read More →
At the risk of duplicating Chuck Jones’s incredible efforts at the Ancient World Online site, here are some more ASOR sponsored publications that are available under an Open Access license via the HathiTrust. Last year, I pulled together volumes of the ASOR Annual that were available as open volumes and listed them here. I started… Read More →
Academic conferences remain one of the trickiest problems in our disciplinary practice. Not only are conferences expensive to attend (and this alone makes them potentially exclusionary for our contingent, alt-ac, and precarious colleagues), bad for the environment, and physically and mentally exhausting, but they also reinforce the complex web of personal, institutional and professional connections that forms the “deep… Read More →
