Friday Quick Hits and Varia

It’s the final Friday of the summer as classes start on Tuesday here in North Dakotaland. On my regular walks down by the river, I can see the very first signs of the trees changing colors and while the temperatures feel more appropriate for the “frog days” of summer, the trajectory is clear: more cooling days than warming days from now until February.

Despite the COVID-inflected season, I have to admit that I’m pretty excited about the start of the academic year. I’m teaching a new class in a new way and look forward to the challenges associated with the uncertainty of the fall semester. 

With the end of the NBA season, I’ll have more time to worry about my Fightin’ Phillies, NASCAR, Formula 1, and an increasingly interesting slate of boxing this fall (including this weekend’s Eleider Alvarez – Joe Smith Jr. tilt).  For the first time in over 20 years, I’ll be able to sit back and watch the Indy 500 on Sunday. 

Finally, if you haven’t had a chance to check out the most recent book from The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, I urge you grab a free download of One Hundred Voices: Harrisburg’s Historic African American Community, 1850-1920 edited by Calobe Jackson, Jr., Katie Wingert McArdle, and David Pettegrew. Even if you’re not interested in Harrisburg at all, the book is part of a larger project that is a model of public history and community activism. Download it here.

Even with everything that’s going on, I did manage to herd up some some quick hits and varia:

• ASOR has decided officially to change its name.

• They’re also trying to help Beirut.

• Do check out next AIA’s webinar series:

Decolonizing Syllabi in the Archaeology and History of the Mediterranean Region which is now available as a recording.

Becoming Better Accomplices And Instructors: Justice, Activism, And Reflexivity In Teaching Museums And Cultural Heritage which is next week.

• Also the Everyday Orientalism group are doing a really nice web-based seminar series.

• “Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter” Resources List.

• You Will Never Be Indiana Jones.

• The Ethics of Citation.

• Also a seminar on Ay. Sophia from Dumbarton Oaks.

• Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt

• Pandemic Solidarity

• Social media and the ADS archives.

• COVID Dashboards:

North Dakota.

Grand Forks.

UND.

• The future of art history.

• A nice review of our The Oxford handbook of early Christian archaeology

• Audio Research: Making the Music Glow.

• What I’m reading: Felipe Rojas, The Pasts of Roman Anatolia: interpreters, traces, horizons. (2019).

• What I’m listening to: Protomartyr, Ultimate Success Today.