A critical-heritage complement to the Janus Maneuver – [Link] More notes on futures studies. A second component to the same conclusion: that working with the past is a way of making futures. Convergence — the “Janus Maneuver” and heritage futures In a recent post I made the case for “The Janus Maneuver” [Link] — that…
critical heritage
Newsletter — Stanford Archaeology Center
Prospective reflections on 2025-26 Acting with nature — prehistory My new book Archaeologies of Nature: Activating the Archive, written with Gabriella Giannachi, University of Exeter and Turin, is now complete and in production. Open Access — it will be available as PDF in June 2026. We use an archaeology of artworks to probe human relationships…
Tony Harrison — poet, playwright, radical Classicist
Poet and playwright, inspiration and colleague, Tony Harrison died yesterday. Widely acknowledged for his extraordinary poetic and dramatic verse, for his daring translation, he might also be remembered as an archaeological poet of classical antiquity — someone who habitually dug into the strata of Graeco-Roman (and medieval) remains and reworked them not as past history, as…
The archaeological life of things — Bornholm
Hosts, ghosts, visitors For some years I have been making archaeological visits to Bornholm, the Danish island south of Sweden. Rock art, unique prehistoric sites and monuments, medieval settlement, churches and castles, rune stones, fishing industry, cold war relics, an arts community since the nineteenth century, contemporary heritage and tourism. The mingling remains of many…
Mike Rowlands 1944 – 2025
Another loss to anthropology and archaeology. Mike Rowlands died on July 19. He was there at the funeral and at the tribute to Chris Tilley last November [Link] and I recalled first meeting him in 1979. It was at a conference about social theory that I helped organize with Keith Ray and Mark Gregson at…
Mik Critchlow
Extraordinary documentary photography from Mik Critchlow (1955-2023) — Ashington, Northumberland, once the biggest pit village in the world. Pitmen’s Requiem — see my work on the Durham Miners Gala – [Link] I came across his work on a visit to Woodhorn Museum [Link] — the last remains of the north-eastern coal industry — several hundred…