Lecture December 4, 2016. "Neighborhood Society: Ancient and Modern"

I'm honored to be presenting a lecture for the Archaeological Institute of America - Milwaukee Chapter on December 4, 2016 on the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee campus (Sabin Hall, Room G90).

This lecture will cover my current thoughts and efforts to connect neighborhood archaeology on ancient sites to what we know about the social life of American neighborhoods in recent history. Namely, I'll present recent conclusions and future plans on my work in Peru and compare it with recent research and teaching on historic Chicago neighborhoods. 

Thanks to AIA-Milwaukee and UW-Milwaukee for the invitation and hospitality! Scroll down for the calendar of all currently-scheduled lectures.

October is for skulls

October is the spookiest month. In its honor I'm posting all the representations of skulls at hand in my house. Is this exercise in repetition useful or enlightening in any way? Well, for one thing it demonstrates the wide variation in depictions of skulls available to consumers (like me). How might this representational variation compare with morphological variation in actual human skulls? How much "skullness" is required for us to read an object as a skull, specifically a human skull? What are the different conventions at work that modify a skull from being a "punk" image to being mass-produced Halloween decor to being expensive glass home decor/art?

Hyperreality in Tosa

In Wauwatosa - or just plain Tosa as is more often said - Hart Park shows us that hyperreality can give us everything we want, and more. But it can't blot out some of the more mundane elements

of landscapes we might like to forget. We can have trees emerging from rock formations that give us the option of either stairs or an escarpment for summiting and our choice of twisty or straight slides for the down climb. We can play in caves and half finished canoes formed from the trunks of impossibly large hardwood trees. Neither the trees will rot nor will the rock formations erode. 

Moreover, a hyperreality playscape allows us to engrave these impossible objects with dedications to donors and inspirational texts to highlight their connection to real things - like poetic thoughts - in the world: after all, few of us will ever encounter a hollow log large enough to walk through. 

Because these landscapes are an amplification of reality controlled by designers and town officials the masquerade can be dropped when necessary in order to reference the undeniably real historicity of the town itself. Here a sculpture inspired by Alexander Calder and Joan Miro, perhaps, attests to the 200 year history of Tosa. The sculpture is a reminder that we're here in the municipal present despite the efforts to convince children that they're in the unfinished project of the pre-tamed wilderness, a project abandoned and left for them to finish, like the oversize canoe.

Quietly in the background, the Menomonee River trickles by camouflaged by wild flowers, untrimmed weeks, and scrubby shrubs. This prairie reality enhances the deeply buried knowledge that all this furniture and its whimsy is make-believe. The wild creek bank reminds us that there really is a wild reality out there to be discovered as our plaything or place to discover or both.

Yet further in the distance polished chain stores anchor the reality that this suburban area, like most, is founded upon convenient access to basic necessities. Pick'n Save will sell raw and prepared goods,

Applebee's will provide hot starches, fats, and alcohol to cut the grease; and ATI Physical Therapy will help you put yourself back together after taking in the amenities of Tosa's suburban hyperreality.