Today is the last day of the spring semester and I’m starting to both look ahead to my summer research leave and look back at my classes over the past year. For readers of this blog, I’m not going to say anything new, but I feel like my experiences this semester continued a traje … | Continue reading
This morning I finally wrote a draft of a conclusion to the paper that I’ve been writing on teaching as a response to a campus crisis. As readers of this blog know, this paper is destined for an edited volume on campus crises. Yesterday, I shared the basic outline of the paper wi … | Continue reading
As readers of this blog know, I’ve been working on a paper for a volume on campus crises. This week, the volume feels all the more relevant (if not, to use everyone’s favorite academic term “urgent”). I’m putting the final touches on the first draft of my chapter which will focus … | Continue reading
I’ve had the latest Vampire Weekend album, Only God Was Above Us, on heavy rotation over the last few weeks. At first, I’ll admit that I didn’t get it. I found it too sonically confusing and even gratuitously distorted to appreciate, but I persisted. I’m not sure why I persisted … | Continue reading
It’s a cool and rainy Friday which feels seasonally appropriate for this time of year. I’ve been riding my push-bike a bit outside of town and it looks like planting is well underway and I expect that the farmers are appreciating the rain. A rainy weekend will make it a bit easie … | Continue reading
As readers of this blog know, I’ve been writing a bit on a paper titled “Teaching as Activism during a Campus Crisis” for an edited volume. This paper will focus on a class that I taught in 2018 at the height of UND’s budget crisis. You can read more about it here or here or… Rea … | Continue reading
For the past ten years, I take some time around now to think about my late friend Joel Jonientz. He pass away in 2014 and as we have for every year since then, I got together with a few friends from “back in those days” for a drink and some memories. As always, there are… Read Mo … | Continue reading
I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of the serial and have wanted to figure out a way to embrace this dynamic form of publishing. This year, I had the chance to publish the first volume in a serial publication: Grand Forks at 150: The First Fifty. This is a collaborative vol … | Continue reading
This weekend I listened to a good bit of music. This was partly because I got a brand new gizmo (a Chord Mojo2 DAC/Headphone amp) and partly because I had a good bit of work to do and music makes everything better. The Past I listened to three older albums this weekend. First, I … | Continue reading
It’s a blustery Friday morning. Like the few small flurries yesterday, mornings like this are a good reminded us that in North Dakotaland, winter is over when winter is over, not when we decide that it’s spring. While I was hoping for more springlike weather, a chilly weekend wil … | Continue reading
As readers of this blog almost certainly know, I’ve been working on a chapter for a volume on campus crises. My chapter is titled “Teaching as Activism during a Campus Crisis,” and it is focusing on a class that I taught in 2018 at the height of UND’s budget crisis. Along side th … | Continue reading
Over the last two weeks, I’ve been working on a paper titled “Teaching as Activism during a Campus Crisis” for an edited collection of papers on contemporary responses to campus crises. You can read more about here (and then follow the links to earlier postings). Earlier this wee … | Continue reading
As a bit of lark David Pettegrew and I submitted the following abstract to the Journal of Field Archaeology for their 50th anniversary volume. According to the call for proposals, they’re looking for papers that consider “what inspires researchers to do their best work?” The long … | Continue reading
The last few weeks saw a flood of good new music coming out and some of it is destined to be in my summer listening rotation. This past weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed Kenny Garrett’s new collaborative album with the beatsmith Svoy titled Who Killed AI? Most of the tracks feature a … | Continue reading
This weekend sounds like it will offer a taste of early summer with temperatures over 70 on Saturday and into the upper 60s on Sunday. This, of course, means spreading mulch, riding my push-bike, and maybe my first outdoor run of the season (depending on how my knee feels and whe … | Continue reading
On Tuesday, I posted some text from my new project “Teaching as Activism during a Campus Crisis.” I explained in my post then that this project has a sense of urgency fueled in no small part by an August 1 deadline! Wednesday was a chaotic day punctuated by the dogs annual visit … | Continue reading
I was tied up in a meeting last night and was not able to attend the premier of some pieces that my buddy Mike Wittgraf prepared from recordings that we made in Merrifield Hall a few years ago before it underwent renovation. We did this as part of a larger project to commemorate … | Continue reading
It’s a funky mid-April Tuesday where I’m starting to feel both excited about my summer research time and harried by the end of a hectic semester. These two, sometimes contradictory emotions, create quite a tumult in my rather simple world. I’m both eager to get on with the progra … | Continue reading
There’s been some great new music out this year and while I tend not to feature it here on the ole blog (who has time for the new when there’s so much old music to enjoy), it seems silly not to mention some new albums that are destined for my 2024 rotation. What’s more shocking… … | Continue reading
It’s starting to feel like spring here in North Dakotaland with temperatures soaring into the mid 50s this weekend and no snow or “significant winter weather events” in the foreseeable future. I’m not saying that we won’t get more snow or some kind of dizzying drop in temperature … | Continue reading
Fall is starting to look very busy for The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota. Today, I’d like to introduce another of our forthcoming titles: Wild Drawing: Street Art in Perspective edited by Kostis Kourelis. This volume will be the first book length treatment of th … | Continue reading
I interrupt the regularly schedule blogging to advertise a job in my department for a “Teaching Assistant Professor History.” I won’t add much commentary to this other than to say that our institution and department is in full recovery after some lean and tumultuous years. Our de … | Continue reading
This time of year my thoughts almost always turn to archaeology as my preparations for the summer research season begin to take on a sense of urgency and clash with the end of the semester rush. For many years, this also meant that I started to think about survey archaeology and … | Continue reading
We’ve enjoyed a week of thawing which made our world a muddy mess, but also tempted me to get outside a bit more than I have the past four months. This weekend, we’ll be plagued by wind which should dry out some puddles, but won’t make it very pleasant. Fortunately, I have a good … | Continue reading
We’ve almost over the midgame hump and end game is on the horizon (one way or another). So it seemed like a particularly good time for one, two, three things Thursday that spans teaching, research, and (in the name of symmetry) service. One Thing the First Next week, my Medieval … | Continue reading
It’s been a long time in the works, but the second Pyla-Koutsopetria volume is almost done and should get submitted this spring. I realize, of course, that this project had been pushed so far to the back burner that some of you may have lost track of it entirely. To rectify this … | Continue reading
It’s starting to feel a bit like spring around here and that means both that I’m starting to plan for my summer research season and that I’m feeling some pressure to wrap up projects before everything goes on pause while I’m “doing the archaeology.” Over the last few days, I’ve s … | Continue reading
Last Friday would have been Ornette Coleman’s 94th birthday and it seems fair and reasonable to start today’s music Monday with a bit of his work. Readers of this blog undoubtedly know Coleman’s most famous late 1950s and early 1960s output. In fact, one of my favorite collection … | Continue reading
Our brief flirtation with spring ended as quickly as it arrived and we’re now back to the long winter (or “spring December” as I like to call it). I’ve officially given up on waiting for weather to get nice having spent all of “so-called” Spring Break in doors. I’m going to smoke … | Continue reading
Spring break is almost over and I’m not sure that I got what I wanted to do done yet, but I’m still going to take a couple of days to recharge my batteries by watching some boxing and F1 while I catch up on some grading, finish a peer review, and maybe read something for… Read Mo … | Continue reading
As readers of this blog may remember, I’ve been doing some casual and sporadic work with the Grand Forks census (here and here). This is partly an effort to develop some of my research skills as a historian and partly to trying to understand the history of my community in a way m … | Continue reading
Today’s post is as much an advertisement as anything else and for that, as always, I apologize. On Thursday evening, I’m giving a paper to the Friends of ASOR, which is a bit like the AIA lecture series. The paper will celebrate 20 years at the ancient harbor of Pyla-Koutsopetria … | Continue reading
I have very much enjoyed listening to the newly remastered release of Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans, Know What I Mean? from 1961. It’s an absolutely classic which starts with Bill Evans’ iconic “Waltz for Debbie” and ends with his “Know What I Mean?” To my ears, the other h … | Continue reading
As readers of this blog know, my colleague Kevin McKeough and I successfully submitted a proposal for a workshop on pseudoarchaeology at the 2024 ASOR annual meeting. The workshop’s short (10 minute) papers will center around a series of common questions that we asked all submitt … | Continue reading
There’s an old saying: every story is about climate change, especially stories about climate change. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but some days it feels pretty plausible. Over the last week, I’ve been slowly trying to get back into a more healthy habit of reading. I ha … | Continue reading
We’re enjoying a long and lazy fall this year with temperatures lingering in the mid-30s and periodically surging into 40s. Unfortunately, I’m a bit hobbled with some lingering knee soreness, and I’ve not been able to extend my running season despite the mild weather. I’ve manage … | Continue reading
I spent time on flights over the last week and this gave me a chance to catch up on some listening (and some reading, finally!). I’m pretty excited to share this first album because I know nothing about this outfit and picked the album effectively at random. The band is called t … | Continue reading
When this post goes live, I’ll probably be doing committee work at the annual American Schools of Oversees Research meeting. I’m trying to keep on my blogging routine, but it’s a bit of a challenge. As a kind of It feels like a good time for a short, “Three Things Thursday”: Thin … | Continue reading
Some travel and some downtime has gotten me off my blogging schedule. I probably can’t fix that right now and expect my blogging to be intermittent for a bit. In the meantime, do enjoy these views of various sidewalks in Greece. (One of my strongest memories of spending time in G … | Continue reading