By Maura Elizabeth Cunningham. Two years ago, I attended a summer school at Heidelberg University on doing scholarship using material objects as sources. At the end of our one-week institute, one of the professors asked all the graduate students in the room to answer this question: “If your dissertation were an object, what would it be?” More...

By Justin Dunnavant. As archaeologists, it is customary for us to keep research journals while conducting fieldwork. Earlier this year I found myself excavating in a remote part of Ethiopia, camped out on the side of a mountain. Every night I would sit down for 15 to 30 minutes and write about the day’s work, weather, new foods, and other day-to-day experiences. More...

By Matt Reed. I’ll get to the responsible, adult part of the blog shortly.  But first a giddy update: The Dog is home!!!! (Insert mental pic of me doing the Snoopy dance.)  We had some wonderful volunteer helpers who helped us get the word out and used reported sightings to triangulate the best spot for a trap. Now she’s home! And she has a GPS collar in her future. Read more...

By Matt Reed. The Chronicle got one right.  It outlined yesterday some discontent among sociologists at the cost of attending the American Sociological Association annual conference.  If you don’t live in or near the host city, the combination of registration, airfare, hotel, and food can easy run over two thousand dollars for a single conference.  And the ASA isn’t unique in that. Read more...

By Matt Reed. What should a campus library look like when enrollments are moving increasingly online?
I’m old enough to remember when college libraries were all about books, microfilm, and microfiche.  (Anyone who worked with microfiche will be immune to talk of the “good old days.”)  Over time, the emphasis on paper volumes -- whether books or periodicals -- has gradually receded, in favor of access to all sorts of electronic databases and resources. Read more...