Project Greece and Rome – [Link] Classics is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome. Or is it? Mary Beard, Cambridge University Professor, the popular “Oxbridge Don“ of the British media, deals with the question of the object of Classics in her book Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations (Liveright 2013). I had a…
Author: Michael Shanks
Heritage – actuality and performative pragmatics
Published next month – Chinese translation of my essay on heritage as actuality, with a case study from the Roman north. [Link] to 2012 version in English.
Update – the actuality of the archaeological past
I have contributed little to this site Since 2016. I have been writing (Greece and Rome: a new model of antiquity [Link]), running experiments in fieldwork (Project Borderlands [Link]), exploring applied archaeology (with a host of organizations and corporations), asking questions of the proper role of the academic, the researcher, the scholar. In this contemporary…
Update – Collections Depot for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Previous reports on this extraordinary project in the future of the museum – [Link] Projects and research theme – Future of the past – Studio Michael Shanks @ Stanford – [Link] JANUS Initiative @ Stanford – [Link] The public art depot for the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, designed by MVRDV is nearing completion in Rotterdam….
Ossian – archaeological memory
Project: Borderlands – [Link] Toscar: I shall sit in my cave in the field of the sun. The blast will rustle in my trees, and I shall think it is the voice of Culhona. Culhona: What cloud is that? It carries the ghosts of my fathers. Locale, genius loci, weather, voices on the wind, the…
Palo Alto History Museum
Project: Future of the Past – [Link] This week I helped run a workshop as part of the planning and fundraising for a history museum for Palo Alto. The Board, led by Rich Green, are a very fine and dedicated group. I was a member from 2014-2016. Here’s a short video from Doug Kreitz making…