archaeological imagination

three synchronicities – different voices

by Michael Shanks

Synchronicity – meaningful coincidence, where things align or connect without there being any proximate or apparent cause. A critical technique to open space for different voices – [Link]. One In a recent online lecture for Stanford Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a Classics professor at Princeton, told of a conference he was attending in Florida on the…

Reconstructing Classics – voice

by Michael Shanks

Part 2 of a review of Confronting Classics, by Mary Beard [Link]. Some tactics for challenging the orthodox monologue of academic Classical Studies and opening space to hear other voices. What is Classical Studies about? Mary Beard argues that Classics is not about ancient Greece and Rome at all, but about what happens in the…

the archaeological circuit

by Michael Shanks

Archaeologists work with what remains. Here’s a new version of my diagram that aims to grasp the components of this process, this field, this circuit (I like all the connotations of field and circuit, involving energy flows, connections of roots and branches, rhizomatic webs and pathways). Read moreArchaeology – [Link]The archaeological imagination – [Link]

Ruins – Josef Koudelka

by Michael Shanks

Thoughts on the universality and valency of ruination. With a comment about the toppling of statues of erstwhile heroes. A couple of months ago Alain Schnapp was talking with me about his new book, a universal history of ruins, an exploration of an archaeological sensibility that takes us back to antiquity [Link]. I have just…

Janus – hindsight and foresight, creative pragmatics

by Michael Shanks

We are moving on with our JANUS research initiative (core team Victor Taratukhin, Natalia Pulyavina, myself) – [Link]. Our case is that being mindful of the past, hindsight, is essential to being able to act for the future. Looking back, researching and exploring, that we might be better prepared for uncertain futures. JANUS – archaeological…