Writing Wednesday: Two Abstracts

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 wrote at some point over the last month or so in the interstices of my day. 

The first one is a collaboration between my wife and I on the Cold War history of Grand Forks, North Dakota. It’s a bit of a prolegomenon to a longer study of Grand Forks in the middle decades of the 20th century. It is for a paper that we will deliver at the CHAT conference next year which is on the topic of HOPE.

The Heritage of Hope in a North American Small Town during the Cold War

William Caraher, University of North Dakota Susan Caraher, Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission

The Cold War represented a time of great contradictions in American life. On the one hand, the period saw a sense of existential dread remembered through “duck and cover” drills in schools, the annual setting of the “doomsday clock,” and the global reverberations of Korea, Vietnam, and numerous proxy “hot” wars supported. On the other hand, the post-World War II period offered prospects for hope in the proliferation of consumer culture, advances in technology, expanded educational opportunities, and the expansion of civil rights to women, minorities, and other marginalized groups.

While today it is clear some of this hope was illusory, this hopefulness nevertheless transformed communities across the United States. Over the past decade, the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission has focused on documenting the Cold War landscape of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Grand Forks stands some 75 miles south of the Canadian border and is the county seat of rural Grand Forks County, North Dakota. Despite its relatively remote location and small size (<60,000 residents), it hosts a state university, a large hospital, a US Air Force base, a major rail yard, and one of the largest grain mills in the U.S. Our work sets these features against the post-war introduction of suburban-style housing to the small town street grid, the construction of new schools consistent with post-war educational priorities, and the development of shopping centers (including the earliest indoor mall in North Dakota), as well as new religious and civic infrastructure.

These studies excavate the tension between the hopeful landscape of a mid-century American small town and the ephemerality of this heritage when confronted with the realities of everyday life, conflicting attitudes toward post-war optimism, and the tainted anxieties of Cold War nostalgia.

The other abstract focuses on my work with the Committee on Publications of ASOR and our ongoing discussions surrounding research publishing in academic archaeology. This panel will occur at the ASOR annual meeting.

Publishing Scholarship of the Ancient World in the Mid 21st Century (Workshop)

Session Chair: William Caraher, University of North Dakota

Description: The 21st century has seen nearly seismic shifts in academic publishing. The rising costs of books and subscriptions have taxed academic institutions. OA mandates, new publishing technologies, the rise of analytics (i10, H-index, journal rankings, etc.), and changing standards have challenged traditional practices. Growing awareness of citational politics, ethical considerations surrounding for-profit publishers, and persistent concerns regarding the transparency, effectiveness, and labor cost of peer review pose further challenges to authors, editors, publishers, and professional organizations as they (we) seek to navigate the current landscape.

Coordinated by the ASOR Committee on Publications (COP), the goal of this workshop is to create space for conversation about ASOR’s current and future publishing practices. Panelists will offer brief considerations of a range of topics, including: Strategies and potential impacts for adopting open access models in ASOR’s publishing; Best practices for digital documentation, and for curating and sharing archaeological data; Navigating the challenges and opportunities afforded by generative AI; Opportunities to reimagine publication to promote meaningful collaboration, recognition for contributions, and new approaches to understanding.

Ample time will be reserved for discussion to allow members to share their perspectives and suggestions about how ASOR’s venues and practices can meet changing present and future disciplinary and institutional needs.

The contributors to this workshop include: Eric Kansa (COP co-chair) and Ann Killebrew on “hybrid digital/narrative publishing, Jennie Ebeling (ARS editor) on the future of the site report, William Caraher (AASOR editor) on new models of scholarly publishing, and Andrea Berlin (LCP) on publishing open, digital data.