Came across a very impressive organization this morning – MIRAlab at the University of Geneva. It describes itself as “a pluridisciplinary lab working on virtual human simulation and virtual worlds”. Archaeology pulls together many kinds of specialists. Reconstructing prehistory requires all sorts of disciplines. So we usually describe archaeology as an interdisciplinary field. And Stanford…
Author: Michael Shanks
sensory memory
The British Library has just launched a new web site devoted to the accents and dialects of the north of England, fast disappearing. Collect Britain, putting history in place. You can listen to recordings made from the 1950s of people talking about everyday life. They are saturated in locality. And just the sounds, intonation, cadence…
craft is cool … and archaeological
Guardian UK – Observer article on craft as art Grayson Perry – A Tradition of Bitterness, 2002 “What folk culture goes on in these Barratt homes: deceit, divorce and suicide in Merrie England …” These days craft is cool. After all it was a potter, Grayson Perry, who won the Turner Prize in December. It…
memory, heritage, things and a sense of who we are
BBC magazine article today on the nostalgia business – it is big and growing. BMW’s new Mini – after the 60s icon – is very popular here in northern California. Raleigh’s 1970s “chopper” bicycle was relaunched last month. Now some people have a problem with all this – because they see nostalgia as some kind…
Bourdieu’s habitus
I finished a short piece last night on Bourdieu and his concept of habitus – for the new Routledge Key Concepts in Archaeology . OK a key concept, in some ways, for recent social archaeology. (In some ways, becuase many don’t make open reference to the concept, though they are influenced by it and its…
Colin Renfrew and archaeological art
In the wake of Colin Renfrew’s visit to Stanford last month I picked up his book Figuring it Out: The Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists. I only glanced at it when it came out last year. I really like it. There is a wonderful range of questioning and reference. His topic is the human…