Glasgow TAG conference – the cows come home to Monte Polizzo. A few years ago now I left I field project in Sicily after just two seasons. I was very angry because I felt I had been forced out by people who didn’t want to listen to my concerns. Angry at my wasted effort, because…
the academy
archaeology – the “materialities of its discourse” – depressing lecture halls
Mike (Pearson) and I presented a series of performed lectures in the first years of the European Association of Archaeologists annual meetings across Europe – 1991 through 1996. Performed lectures – raising the level of expressive demands upon presenter and audience with intellectual content uncompromised – intermedia presentation dealing in the textures of archaeology and…
hobbit hominids – data property rights
Hobbits locked away as scientists argue – Science – www.theage.com.au It has been a plague of archaeological research since the beginnings of the discipline in the eighteenth century, and a contemporary scandal, though few speak out about it. So I hear that the hobbit hominid remains have been locked away by a palaeontologist in Jakarta…
the ancients: now available in colour
John Hooper in the Guardian reviews the “Colours of White” exhibition at the Vatican museums, Rome (until January 31) – Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | The ancients: now available in colour. For hundreds of years, Caligula’s handsome, marble face has stared out at a fascinated world. Now situated at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum…
Robert Sarmast – more junk about Atlantis
More fantasy archaeology in the news. Robert Sarmast has modelled underwater topographic data and sees the remains of a city. Sarmast’s Atlantis This underwater geology has been well researched and is understood as volcanic activity ([Link] [Link]). But the pictures have far more rhetorical force. As does Sarmast’s own story of the rogue amateur who…
Michael Herzfeld on comparative ethnography
Comparing one society with another Michael Herzfeld was talking today about ethnography, about the centrality of comparison. His latest work is to compare Greece with Italy with Thailand. Michael Herzfeld at Stanford today Many anthropologists have become anxious about the comparative method, because comparing one society with another with the aim of understanding each through…