see also Resumé
Archaeologist at Stanford
Here is a short personal statement
My archaeology began, and continues, in the Roman borders of the north of England and Scotland, exploring Hadrian's Wall, the great medieval city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then north through the heartland of Celtic Christianity and the landscapes of Walter Scott. I have also specialized in studying the first Greek cities in the Mediterranean, as well as early farming societies and their monuments in Wessex and Sweden - new models and stories of early agriculture, the first cities and empires, long term social and cultural trends, and how much the modern world has in common with antiquity.
My archaeology is a bridging field. For me, archaeologists do not discover the past; they work on what remains. Archaeology is about our relationships with what is left of the past.
We are all archaeologists now ...
More of this manifesto in the archaeological imagination - [link]
Archaeology - design history. Pragmatogony - the geneaology of things - where things come from. These are two topics that fascinate me. Because making and using things makes us who we are.
I have also always adored the company of artists - my wife Helen works in ceramics (see some of her fabulous work here - [link]). I have had the privilege of working with some wonderful talents - notably Brith Gof, Lynn Hershman and the members of the Presence Project). I think that the Arts and Humanities are a fascinating research laboratory, helping us think freshly about how we have got to be where we are - and what we might do about it.
Above all, perhaps, I am currently enjoying a renewed childhood with my children Molly and Ben, who forever remind me to wonder at the most mundane of things, and to connect my fascination with the past with the legacies we leave behind for the future.
One of those bios that get requested when you go to speak somewhere ...
Michael Shanks is the Omar and Althea Dwyer Hoskins Professor of Classical Archaeology at Stanford University. He has been a Director of Stanford Humanities Lab and is a founder of Stanford Strategy Studio. His lab in Stanford Archaeology Center is called Metamedia.
Michael has worked on the archaeology of early farmers in northern Europe ([link] and [link]), Greek cities in the Mediterranean [link], has researched the design of beer cans [link], and the future of mobile media for Daimler Chrysler [link]; currently he is exploring the English borders with Scotland [link] with new excavations of the Roman town of Binchester [link], and investigating the Anglo-American antiquarian tradition [link] as a key to a fresh view of the early history of science.
His archaeology lab at Stanford, Metamedia, is pioneering the use of Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate collaborative multidisciplinary research networks in design history, media materialities and long-term historical trends. This comes after a long collaboration with the European performance company Brith Gof and with performance artists in the Presence Project - arts practice in multimedia. As a Director of Stanford Humanities Lab, he has championed experimental research and development in transdisciplinary Arts and Humanities, building bridges to a bigger picture on our contemporary cultural condition. A key theme in his current lab projects is the future of The Archive [link].
A series of critical interventions in debates about the character of the archaeological past, including the books ReConstructing Archaeology (1987), Social Theory and Archaeology (1987), Experiencing the Past (1992), Art and the Early Greek State (1999) and Theatre/Archaeology (2001) have made him a key figure in contemporary archaeological thought. For Michael, archaeologists do not discover the past; they work on what remains. Archaeology, the discipline of things, design and making, is about our relationships with what is left of the past. This means we are all archaeologists now; cultural heritage lies at the core of who we think we are, and how we might respond to the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Research and expertise
Early Greek cities in the Mediterranean
The northern provincial borders of the Roman empire, and after
Cultural heritage - the way the past conditions who we are, the way we act, the way we view the future
Design history and thinking - archaeology offering exceptional insight into how we understand creativity, innovation, change, and our dependency on goods
Long-term social modeling - a key to planning the future - rooted in archaeology because it is the only access to most of human history
New media - particularly the prospect of participatory and cocreative media
Collaborative networks and agile project management - not least because an archaeologist can only work to understand long term change with the most diverse of colleagues and with the active participation of stakeholder interests in the remains of the past
links
Metamedia - in Stanford Archaeology Center
see also Resumé
Photo - Julian Dufort from Seed Magazine - October 2007 - [link]
(Julian clearly thought I needed to look very serious!)
