Three Things Thursday: Looking Down and Looking Ahead

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 “research.”

In the meantime, I thought I would offer a little handful of updates for those of you curious about what I’ve been up to!

Thing the First

First thing, first. This evening my colleagues and I are giving a talk celebrating both 20 years of work at the site of Pyla-Koutsopetria and marking the changing of the guard as we pass the project off to a new generation of archaeologists.

The talk will be over zoom and there’s a small fee ($25 or so) that goes to benefit ASOR. Our talk should embrace the chaotic collaboration that characterized our work from the start. 

You can register for the event here for $13 which goes to help support ASOR.

And you can see what I have to say here.

Thing the Second

My summer research time is starting to take shape. We have our place to stay at Polis and look forward to a three or four week season there focusing primarily on an apparently kiln and lamp deposit in the area of E.F2 near the South Basilica. Here’s our internal final report from last season for anyone who is interest. 

We’re also going to spend a couple of weeks in Larnaka working on some material from the Larnaka Sewage System Excavations in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities. This will involve the study and preparing for publication of some salvage material that should shed some light on Hellenistic, Roman, and Late Roman Kition.

Finally, we’ll be spending a few weeks at Isthmia in Greece working once again on the Slavic material as well as looking at some possible new stretches of the Hexamilion Wall. You can read a bit about some of our evolving research questions here and here.

Thing the Third

Later today, I’m going to start typesetting a collaborative project associated with the city of Grand Forks 150th anniversary. Our plan is to produce a volume that presents 150, 150-word essays related to the history of Grand Forks. The first 40 or so came from a seminar that Nikki Berg-Burin ran for history students. These essays were then edited and polished by students in my Writing, Editing, and Publishing Practicum class and about 10 more little essays were added from elsewhere.

The students offered some suggestions on page design and typesetting and I’m going to do my best to honor these, but some of them are… let’s say… unconventional to the point of being aesthetically jarring (or at least mildly irresponsible). So I need to find a way to embrace their design vision while gently reshaping it to produce a more polished and professional looking final product. I hope to have something to share by the middle of next week! 

Stay tuned!