On Tuesday, I was supposed to devote a couple hours reading the totally unreasonably amount of Thucydides that I assigned my Greek History class. Instead, I got sucked into Daniel Immerwahr’s brilliant article in Past & Present titled: “All That Is Solid Bursts into Flame: Capitalism and Fire in the Nineteenth-Century United States.” I blame… Read More →
I’ve had some time of the last couple weeks to slowly start to catch up on my reading. This means randomly flailing about and reading articles, books for next semester, parts of Didier Eribon’s Returning to Reims, and short stories from the latest Conjunctions. So here goes my most recent reads: Article the First Theodoros… Read More →
A few months ago, I wrote a post on a book project that is absolutely not what I’m working on right now. It is called “Recent Advances in Pseudoarchaeological Practice.” In my previous post, I outline some of the goals of this little book with I hoped would clock in at around 40,000 words and… Read More →
For a long time, I resisted the idea that Thursdays were the new Fridays. After all, I still got up and went to work on Fridays so Thursdays just seemed like Thursdays to me. In fact, Fridays and Wednesdays also often seemed like Thursdays too. Thursdays are weird that way. Recently, however, I’ve started to feel… Read More →
I’m juggling a few projects lately and that always keeps me on my toes and excited to get to work in the morning. Right now, I’m working with Rachael Kiddey to edit the inaugural volume in the CHAT book series. It’s a collection of papers from festivalCHAT which was an online conference held in 2020.… Read More →
Yesterday I posted the first part of an article that I have written about the Bakken as Babylon. It’s for a special section in Near Eastern Archaeology dedicated to the archaeology of climate change and edited by Omur Harmansah and Katie Kearns. In my post yesterday I’ve included links to earlier drafts of this piece. As is… Read More →
I know that I’m late today, but I’m working on a deadline that has already passed. The deadline is a for a short paper that I started to put together in the spring and like so many projects of mine lingered in the queue until slightly after the last minute. The good news is that… Read More →
Today will be a hectic day toward the end of a hectic week. As we enter the “frog days” of summer, I think I’m feeling the start of the fall semester looming. As a result, all I have this morning is a very short three things Thursday, but maybe there’s a bit of thematic unity that… Read More →
Over the next week or so, I need to work on three different projects, each of which have their own charm, but are less connected to each other than I would like. Thing the First Today is a Corinthia day and as soon as this post is done, I’m heading over to Google Docs to… Read More →
As I get old, one of my great weaknesses as a professional is becoming more and more apparent. As my always modest synapses have slowed down further and my limited pool of energy has gotten shallower, I find myself increasingly driven by deadlines rather than genuine curiosity about the past (or the present or the world). This… Read More →
This week, I’m shifting a bit of my attention to a paper that I hope to submit to a special section in Near Eastern Archaeology. It paper is tentatively titled “The Bakken and Babylon” or something like that. I’ve posted two other fragments of this article here and here. Today’s fragment considers the concept of… Read More →
Last week, I started to work on a little article for a special section of Near Eastern Archaeology that proposed a contemporary spatial displacement where Babylon, broadly construed, and the Bakken oil patch of western North Dakota somehow became transposed. I propose that this kind of spatial ambiguity is anticipated, in part, by works of fiction that have recently come… Read More →
The last couple weeks have been a real struggle for me personally and professionally. I’ve been sort of drifting through my days in a post-COVID fog and have found it incredibly difficult to focus enough to write anything longer than a few sentences. This is particularly intense in the afternoons when I start to fatigue. I… Read More →
Last week, I listened to my first audiobook: Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. It was lavishly produced (I think) and featured numerous actors and accents to enliven a story with a genuinely global reach. It is worth reading (or listening to). The book tells the story of climate change the role of… Read More →
I’ve reached the point of the summer when all my projects seem to melt together into chaotic ball of deadlines, half-met expectations, and long bikes rides. Needless to say, it has not been very productive. At the same time, I am having fun thinking about things to blog about and then stretching my morning blogging… Read More →
Next week, I’m participating in a roundtable at the ASOR annual meeting. This roundtable is titled “Archaeology and Climate Change: New Challenges to Fieldwork in the Middle East” and it is convened by Ömür Harmanşah. I’ve been thinking about ourr paper pretty non-stop this weekend. It’s titled “North Dakota and the Middle East: The Bakken Oil Patch… Read More →
It’s a Thursday and just after the mid-point of the semester. Most years, the wheels start to come off about now, and I’m certainly feeling a greater sense of general urgency than I usually do. As a gesture to a rather frantic time, it feels right to do a little “Three Things Thursday” to clear the deck… Read More →
Tomorrow I’m presenting in Prof. Sercan Yandim Aydin and Prof. Luca Zavagno’s Byzantium at Ankara seminar series in a session titled “Famine and Plagues in Byzantium: archaeology, documentary and hagiography in a comparative perspective.” I have to admit to feeling more than a little nervous about the topic which is pretty far from my core area… Read More →
