I just got back from the regularly-held conference for my sub-field, Mycenaean Studies (the study of the writing systems of the Bronze Age Aegean, especially Linear B, and related Cypriot scripts). This was the 16th such colloquium, held in Madrid. Maybe it s because I ve now been to five of these (four as a speaker) over [ ]
In 2017, I wrote a blog post about academic book reviews because I was irritated by a review that (1) that it didn’t seem to even try to understand the context of the book on its own terms, (2) didn’t (try to) understand the actual arguments of the book, (3) didn’t understand basic facts (e.g., [ ]
A couple of days ago I stumbled across ReLight, a new (to me, it s been out for almost a year!) program to create relightable images, what I usually call RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) or PTM (Polynomial Texture Mapping). These are files that allow you to produce dynamic photographs for which you can control the way [ ]
I just got back from an exhilarating two days at the Joukowsky Institute s State of the Field of Mediterranean archaeology workshop, which was entitled Archaeologies of the Mediterranean. I served as the discussant, which I was a little worried about, because (a) my work is pretty strongly centered on Greece and I don t have much [ ]
[Authorial note: I edited this post on 15 October 2021 to remove some discussions that were misleading or uncollegial; they were not critical to the argument.] I ve been thinking about ways to structure a paper that I m giving in May 2022, and one thing that keeps swirling around my head is the double tap rule [ ]
Just over two weeks ago, I learned that HD Cameron, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, had passed away on July 17th. You can read a wonderful tribute to him written by Professor Ben Forston here. Professor Cameron was the best teacher I had at [ ]
Bill Caraher s blog post on his summer reading list prompted me to do the same. Like Bill, I m not planning to go to Greece this summer. I can t remember the last time I ve been away from Greece for this long it was sometime before 1998, which was the last time I didn t go to Greece. [ ]
The latest flurry of discussion among Classicists was spurred by a New York Times Magazine article about Professor Dan-El Padilla Peralta written by Rachel Poser entitled “He Wants to Save Classics From Whiteness. Can the Field Survive?” I personally found the discourse about this article deeply depressing. Not only do Classicists seem incapable of engaging [ ]
Towards the end of his review of the archaeology of palatial Crete in Archaeological Reports, entitled Palatial Crete: recent discoveries research, 2014–2019, Kostas Christakis writes, The study of old and new data with a view to examining the political, economic and ideological organization of the various Bronze Age polities and the impact of Minoan [ ]
I ve been meaning to write some version of this post for a couple of months, but the spring semester and then COVID-19 got in the way. I ve been thinking since January that I need to think more carefully about what it means to be a senior scholar. It s a weird term, because I don t consider [ ]