Seen Elsewhere

Yahoo brought up what I thought was an odd story. A university in America has a new professor of Archaeology. I can see how this sort of thing is a big deal for the parties concerned, but usually I’m not that interested. You expect the professor to carry on producing much the same sort of work as before, albeit better paid. This story is interesting though. Brown University is expanding their Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and the person they’ve poached to be director is Susan Alcock. Like John Cherry (also moving to Brown), she’s brought a distinctive approach to archaeology survey. Fair enough, but the reason I’m interested is that she’s not merely an excellent classicist; she’s also very good at moving across disciplinary boundaries. Being given a whole institute to play with could lead to some fascinating changes in archaeology and classics on the east coast.

Rebecca Goetz has a post on the Participation Trophy. It makes me very pleased we don’t have participation grades at Leicester. I like most of the students but every so often you meet one who feels education is something they have inflicted on them, rather than something they do.

I think I’ve forgotten to mention two good posts on Keats’ Telescope. …but you knew that already is on the re-discovery of forgotten findings. Biology Direct- a completely different way to publish, shows a model of academic publishing which could be applied to other disciplines. Or at least in disciplines where access is more important than prestige.

Finally in time for Valentine’s day, it’s the death of romance. The NHS Direct now instructs us to exercise our pleasure muscles three times daily. Thankfully the note at the bottom says the page is only temporary, so I should lose the feeling of Patricia Hewitt staring over my shoulder after a while.