CMLL Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities

Dr. Witmore received his doctorate from Stanford University in 2005, with a dissertation on archaeological practice and Greek landscape entitled Multiple-field approaches in the Mediterranean: Revisiting the Argolid Exploration Project. During the following year he accepted a postdoctoral position with the Stanford Humanities Lab and Metamedia where he continued to develop digital initiatives, co-founding both archaeolog.org (http://archaeolog.org) and archaeography.com (http://archaeography.com). From 2006 to 2009 Dr Witmore was a postdoctoral research fellow with the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. In 2009, Dr Witmore joined the faculty of Texas Tech University as assistant professor.

A kind of specialist generalist in archaeology, Dr Witmore's work follows three complementary paths. From the development of agricultural practices in the Neolithic to pastoral economies and the dynamics of the Greek polis to contemporary land-use he has developed geographies of the Greek countryside over the very long term. Second, his work has explored the relationships of people and things, specifically in the context of ‘media' (whether 2 nd-century BCE inscriptions, 1st-century CE coins, or 18th-century maps) as developing modes of circulating actions and ideas. Third, his interests have led him to questions related to archaeological knowledge design and the place of digital media.

Dr Witmore is currently putting the finishing touches on two books: Archaeology: The Discipline of Things and a co-edited volume, Conversations through Archaeology.

Education

Ph.D., Classical Archaeology, Stanford University 2005

M.A., Landscape Archaeology, University of Sheffield 1998

B.A. (summa cum laude) Archaeology, Classical Studies, and Geography, University of North Carolina at Greensboro 1996

Research Interests

Classical Archaeology, Things, Landscape and Chorography, Archaeological Theory and Practice, Digital Media, and the History of Archaeology

Current Courses

• Ancient Technology: Archaeology, Science and Design
• Archaeologies of the Classical World
• The World of Greece: Archaeology, History and Literature
• The World of Egypt and the Near East: Archaeology, History and Literature

Recent Publications

• “AHR Conversation: Historians and Material Culture” (with L. Austander, A. Bentley, L. Halevi, and O. Sibum) American Historical Review , 114(5). 2009
• “Prolegomena to Open Pasts: On Archaeological Memory Practices.” In K. Ryzewski (ed.) Archaeology, Experience, Modes of Engagement, Archaeology , a special issue of Archaeologies 5(3). 2009
• "Things are Us! A Commentary on Human/Things Relations under the Banner of a ‘Social' Archaeology." (Co-author with Timothy Webmoor) Norwegian Archaeology Review 41(1). 2008
• "Archaeology on the ground: The memory practices of David Webb." European Journal of Archaeology . 2008
• "William Martin Leake: a contemporary of P.O. Brøndsted in Greece and in London." (Co-author with T.V. Buttrey) in P.O. Brøndsted (1780-1842) - A Danish Classicist in his European context . Rasmussen, B.B., Jensen, J.S., Lund, J. and Märcher (eds) Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter 31, 15-34. 2008
• “The Endangered Future of the Past.” (with Omur Harmansah) International Herald Tribune and The New York Times . December 21, 2007. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21iht-edwhitmore.html
• "Symmetrical archaeology: Excerpts of a manifesto." World Archaeology . 546-562. 2007
• "Arqueología Simétrica. Un Manifiesto Breve". In González-Ruibal, A. (ed.) Arqueología Simétrica. Un Giro Teorico sin Revolucion Paradigmática. Complutum , 18, 305-313. 2007
• “Landscape, time, topology: An archaeological account of the southern Argolid Greece” in Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage , Hicks, D., Fairclough, G. and McAtackney, L. (eds) One World Archaeology. 194-225. 2007
• "Vision, Media, Noise and the Percolation of Time: Symmetrical approaches to the mediation of the material world." Journal of Material Culture 11(3), 267-292. 2006
• "Archaeology and modernity or archaeology and a modernist amnesia?" Norwegian Archaeology Review, 39(1). 49-52. 2006
• “On multiple fields. Between the material world and media: Two cases from the Peloponnesus, Greece.” Archaeological Dialogues 11(2), 133-164. 2004
• “Four archaeological engagements with place: mediating bodily experience through peripatetic video.” The Visual Anthropology Review 20(2), 57-72. 2004