Ben Cullen

On the anniversary of the untimely and sudden death of Ben Cullen in 1995. [Link] [Link] [Link] I dedicated my book, The Archaeological Imagination [Link], published in April, to Ben. It is seventeen years today since he died. Uncanny. I wonder what I would say to him about the book, that might reveal how much…

the archaeological uncanny

Gabriel Moshenska has sent me his recent and very neat article about the archaeological uncanny in the ghost stories of MR James. Gabriel is quite right, I think, to highlight the connection between Freud’s unheimlich, ghosts, and the haunting persistence, sometimes malevolent, of the past – MR James made much of the curses that can…

at Metamedia

Last night we celebrated ten years of work in all things archaeological run through our Metamedia Lab. Archaeology: the discipline of things [Link] is one of our latest productions – a collaborative effort (exactly what the studio is meant to stand for) – four of us working together such that the whole book is one…

when the everyday becomes history and heritage

A couple of months ago Road&Track were about to throw out their old office collection of back issues, photographs, notes, books, promotional literature sent them by car companies, and all manner of paperwork reaching back to the late 1940s when the magazine, one of the most famous and respected in the automotive world, was founded….