design – cultural literacy
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] This evening – a group of friends and colleagues discussing education and schooling with Tony Wagner. Our warm and welcoming hosts were Joan Lonergan and John Merrow at Castilleja School. Topics: [...]
VINOVIVM
Our project to explore the Roman town of Binchester – Vinovium – reached the news at Stanford today – [Link] The report took an appropriately student-centered focus. And we certainly had a wonderful team last year. Project site – VINOVIVM.ORG
Rotterdam – International Advisory Board
My second year serving as advisor to the Mayor of Rotterdam. Link Discussion at the top of the Port Authority HQ, Rotterdam Why? Because the politics of cultural heritage are now at the heart of any enlightened economic and social planning. My argument – figuring out where we need to go depends upon knowing where [...]
artereality
“Artereality: rethinking art as craft in a knowledge economy” – a manifesto for arts and humanities pedagogy, and indeed research, was published today in a collection of essays about the future of arts education in the US, edited by Steven Madoff for MIT Press. I wrote it with Jeffrey Schnapp, drawing on our experience of [...]
SFMOMA – The Art of Participation 1950 – Now
Life Squared [link], our installation in the online world Second Life, is currently part of the exhibition The Art of Participation 1950 – Now at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Life Squared – web link and gallery link. More links – Linden Lab/Second Life and Wired magazine The exhibition, curated by Rudolf Frieling, is [...]
Hershman – Strange Culture – Sundance
Stanford Humanities Lab at Sundance Film Festival On Monday 22 January and Wednesday 24 January our experimental facility in the online world Second Life will host the première of Lynn Hershman’s new movie “Strange Culture” as part of the Sundance Film Festival. In 2004 artist and college professor Steve Kurtz was preparing for a [http://www.massmoca.org/ [...]
archaeological fakes in the German academy
A fascinating item today in the Guardian – History of modern man unravels as German scholar is exposed as fraud Flamboyant anthropologist falsified dating of key discoveries Luke Harding in Berlin It appeared to be one of archaeology’s most sensational finds. The skull fragment discovered in a peat bog near Hamburg was more than 36,000 [...]
“Seeing the Past” – archaeology conference at Stanford
I wound up a fine conference at Stanford today – Seeing the Past – Building knowledge of the past through acts of seeing. Congratulations to the organizers – Stacey Camp, Sarah Levin-Richardson and Lela Urquhart. All the papers are on line and available for comment – [Link]. It is a high quality collection and worth [...]
Foresight, design studies, the long term, and archaeology
Last Friday Bill Cockayne (Stanford Humanities Lab Assoc. Director) and I (also in my role as co-Director of Stanford Humanities Lab) were at the local office of DaimlerChrysler – RTNA (Research and Technology North America). In response to their request, we were proposing a project to research the future of car culture, with a focus [...]
forgery and illicit antiquities – the importance of narrative
From the Guardian today – Forgers ‘tried to rewrite biblical history’ Hundreds of biblical artefacts in museums all over the world could be fakes, it has emerged after Israeli investigators uncovered what they claim is a sophisticated forgery ring. Four men have been charged with the faking of some of the most important biblical discoveries [...]
From Ben Cullen to Stephen Shennan on memes
On the anniversary of the death of Ben Cullen. [Link] His parents visited us this summer. Richard (Cullen) has taken up archaeology himself. It was a very poignant afternoon – lunch in our garden here in Stanford, talking of Ben in Wales and Australia. Ben would have been forty. Molly (six) and our own Ben [...]
sham archaeological science in the academy
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 [...]
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 [...]
Mike Pearson and theatre/archaeology
Mike Pearson, performance artist, was in Stanford this week. We wrote the book Theatre/Archaeology together. He talked to our New Media Workshop about recent work of his, and then to the Archaeology Center about his research into what really went on in the expeditions to the Antarctic back in the early 1900s. Both were provocative. [...]
Michael Casson – studio potter – 1925-2003
In class this morning I ran a google search for a picture of Mycenaean marine style pottery, and it turned up an obituary for Michael Casson, the studio potter. He was a giant in the world of craft pottery, a pioneer of 20th century studio ceramics, and a lovely man. He died last December. We [...]
Remix Radio Show This Sunday in San Francisco! | Creative Commons
Earlier this week I was airing the matter of copyright and intellectual property in connection with academic citation, pulling it all into the issue of democratic cultural creativity. [Link] The The Creative Commons blog announces a radio show this Sunday on the art of remix in a broad perspective – from Roman intertextuality to DJ [...]
remembering Michael Jameson
A sad occasion this afternoon – a remembrance service for Mike Jameson, my colleague in the Department of Classics here at Stanford. He died in August. It was in Stanford Church – first time I had attended any kind of event there. A good turn out. There were some very nice anecdotes told by friends [...]
intellectual property and copyrighting the past
I am sitting in a colloquium on Open Knowledge and Social Research Networks at Stanford Humanities Center. On the agenda – more of the issues that I summarized the other day in another colloquium at Stanford. [Link] how does open knowledge work with digital technology in academic institutions? how does collaboration at a distance work? [...]
Excavating the mind
Chris (Witmore) is back from Denmark – we are planning fieldwork in Romania, in collaboration with Gothenburg, the Swedish National Heritage Board, and other colleagues from northern Europe. This is his report on a conference at Aarhus he attended – Excavating the Mind The Department of Prehistoric Archaeology in cooperation with the Centre for Cultural [...]
