WARNING: This blog post is probably going to make you very emotional. The principal emotion you are likely to experience is anger. Before you start rampaging in the comments box, please, read the entire article. Then, take three deep breaths and think about where this anger is coming from. Then, […]
“Peripheries and Boundaries” was the theme of this year’s Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) Conference in Seattle. Many of the symposia focused on the issues that arise when people and archaeologists focus on spaces in flux including diaspora, racialization, power differentials, and identity. Along with the question “Will the Seahawks […]
“If you bite off more than you can chew, just keep chewing.” Last year (2014), was a difficult one for me and Succinct Research. Time was hard to come by because I was still working on my PhD classes and trying to get the River Street Digital History Project off […]
As soon as I stepped off the plane in Seattle, I knew the Seahawks had either won the Super Bowl or taken over the world. For many reasons, the prevalence of Seahawks’ gear and 12th Man kudos makes me feel good. Perhaps, it’s because, as a general Seattle sports team […]
(Last month, I was asked to write a letter to a fifth grade student that is interested in archaeology. The student is African American and has not been doing well in school. The Society for Black Archaeologists asked all of its members to write a letter of encouragement that, hopefully, […]
Feast or Famine is a frequently acknowledged part of being a CRM archaeologist. Because many of our companies are so poorly managed, they live and die by close-ended, temporary cultural resources contracts. The company goes into the toilet if the management is unable to land contracts. When the project flow […]
This morning, I read just about the most frightening story a young PhD student/aspiring academician could read. In case you didn’t know, Stefan Grimm, a toxicology professor at Imperial College London, ended his life in September, 2014 at the age of 51. What drove this prodigious professor to kill himself? […]
Depending on your sources, between 49 and 66% of all college professors are adjuncts. Full-time, untenured faculty composes 19 percent of professors, which means, at most, only a third of professors are on the tenure track. As a PhD student, I’ve been steadily encouraged to keep up hope about becoming […]
[NOTE: This post is not about my friend Chris Webster. He is alive and well] Chris, my good friend of 20 years, died today. He was 36 years old and leaves behind a wife and two kids in preschool. Dying that young shouldn’t have happened. Leaving behind a wonderful wife […]
Recently, I published a blog post that tackled the issue of what I called the poverty mentality in archaeology. Most of the people that read that piece had no problem with it. Some of the readers, however, did not agree with my perspective and were not impressed by my message. […]
