Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

I’m on the road and thinking too much about travel.

Tomorrow, my wife and I will be delivering out paper, “The Heritage of Hope in a North American Small Town during the Cold War” at the 2026 CHAT | Hope conference in Innsbruck, Austria.

With the mid-semester cloud of grading and deadlines lifting a bit, I actually found time to do some quasi-pleasure reading this past week.

I’m traveling this week, so there might be some interruptions in the ole blog, but I’ll try to keep them to a minimum.

It’s almost 60° and there is talk of a high near 75° today here in North Dakotaland.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been talking with some colleagues about documenting Columbia Hall on the University of North Dakota’s campus.

A colleague of mine mentioned that our 2017 linked data version of our 2014 volume on Koutsopetria on Cyprus has become rather hard to find on the internet.

Over the weekend, I finished Kyle Conway’s latest book on the Bakken: At Home in the Petromodern Paradox: Landscape and Community in the Bakken Boom (2026).

In October, we always listen to Thelonious Monk.

On Friday, I wrote a post and somehow it vanished.

Over the course of the semester, I’ve been ruminating on the idea of a device free classroom.

Over the last week, I worked pretty consistently on our paper for the annual CHAT meeting in Innsbruck at the end of the month.

Over the weekend, I started Kyle Conway’s latest book on the Bakken: At Home in the Petromodern Paradox: Landscape and Community in the Bakken Boom (2026).

It was a busy week, but I did get a little listening done.

It’s a cool morning today but we’re being told that tomorrow will be the absolutely final last gasp of summer with temperatures almost 80° before crashing into the 40s and 50s for the next week.

We’re hosting Cory Haala tomorrow evening on UND’s campus for the annual Wilkins Lecture.

This week, I’m trying to wrap up our paper, “The Heritage of Hope in a North American Small Town during the Cold War,” which we’ll deliver at the end of the month.

Over the past week or so, I’ve been trying to get back into some kind of reading routine.

While I’m writing this, I’m enjoying Cannonball Adderley’s Fiddler on the Roof (1964) which matches Adderley’s alto with Charles Lloyd’s tenor saxophone.

My watch tells me that it’s 37° here in North Dakotaland this morning which feels a lot like real fall rather than the various “false falls” that we’d been enjoying.

Over the last few months, there seems to be a growing “device free classroom” movement.

Over the last semester, I’ve had the good fortune to read some of my brilliant colleagues introductions to book length projects.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to shift my attention to a paper that my wife and I are giving at the CHAT annual meeting in Innsbruck, Austria at the end of the month.

It goes without saying that this week, we celebrate John Coltrane on his centennial.

It’s a fall Friday which means a chance of rain, cooling temperatures, and a tree full of apples (at least in our yard).

There’s a lot going in right now for me, but it’s mostly good (if a bit hectic) and when I have so much going on, it’s nice to dump some of it into a blog post.

This time of year, I end up writing grant proposals to fun my summer field work.

I had a wonderful time at a conference this past weekend hosted by the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC.

I was traveling over the latter part of the week and this cut into some of my music listening, but I did enjoy three albums this week during my travels.

I’m on the road this week and I don’t quite have the bandwidth to post my using Friday Varia and Quick Hits.

It’s just starting to feel like fall here in North Dakotaland.

We’re just concluding week 3 of the semester and I’m starting to feel like both myself and my students are settling into a groove.

This past week, I’ve been trying to find my writing groove again and make progress on a conference paper that I’m giving next Friday in Washington, DC.

Last week, I started a post on six ways that I have used generative AI over the last years.

This has been a nice music week for me.

After a day of storms, the weather seems to have settled down here on the northern plains and it looks like we might actually have a nice weekend.

Over on the social media, there is ongoing conversation among people who find various forms of generative AI (and LLM) more useful for their work as historians and less useful.

I got a bit of writing done over the last couple of weeks and I’m starting to feel a bit of momentum.

Over the weekend I read Federica Maria Riso, Valentina Limina, and Alexandra Livarda’s new edited volume, Roman Economy and the Acquisition of New Tastes: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Oxbow 2026) for a review.

The first week of classes is always a hectic time and doesn’t always afford much time for good listening.