Christopher Witmore
Professor in Archaeology and Classics, Texas Tech University
Christopher L. Witmore on ResearchGate
PhD: Stanford University 2005
MA: University of Sheffield 1999
BA: University of North Carolina at Greensboro 1996
Chris's research focuses on things, land, and human ecology in the Mediterranean, especially southern Greece, on the Roman built environment in Northern Britain, and on archaeological memories of a POW camp in Norway. Chris is fascinated by the character and scope of archaeology and for over a decade he has explored fundamental questions concerning the discipline's objects, practices, and rapports with what has become of the past. A senior founding member of the Metamedia Laboratory at Stanford, his work with media and things has addressed a range of questions from how archaeologists manifest qualities of the material world to how we might expand our range of expression in the humanities and sciences. Recently, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo, and held the Donnelley Family Fellowship at the National Humanities Center where he worked on his current book project: Old Lands. A Chorography of the Eastern Morea, Greece.
Books
| Objects Untimely: Object-oriented philosophy and archaeology. (Co-author with G. Harman). Cambridge: Polity, 224pp. | 2023 |
| Old Lands. A Chorography of the Eastern Peloponnese, Greece. London: Routledge, 550pp. | 2020 |
| Archaeology in the Making: Conversations through a Discipline. (Co-editor with W. Rathje and M. Shanks). London: Routledge, 448pp. | 2013 (2017 paperback) |
| Archaeology: The Discipline of Things. (Co-author with B. Olsen, M. Shanks and T. Webmoor). Berkeley: The University of California Press, 256pp. | 2012 |
Editorial Positions
| Archaeological Orientations (co-editor with Gavin Lucas), Routledge. | from January 2011 |
| Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, (member, editorial board), Equinox. | from October 2012 |
Recent Journal Articles and Book Chapters
| “Anthropoiesis revisited: Hominization through the incorporation of nonhumans.” In F. Coolidge, K. Overmann, and T. Wynn (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology. OUP. (25pp.) | 2022 |
| “Excavating War and Idleness: The Case of Sværholt” (with Stein Farstadvoll, Ingar O. Figenschau, and Bjørnar J. Olsen). The Journal of Conflict Archaeology, (62pp). | 2022 |
| “Theory above? Theory alongside? A reply to Bauer, Beck, Johnson, Marila, and Preucel” (with G. Lucas). Norwegian Archaeological Review. 55(1), 92-95. | 2022 |
| “Paradigm Lost: What is a commitment to theory in contemporary archaeology?” (with G. Lucas). Norwegian Archaeological Review. 55(1), 64-77. | 2022 |
| “Will the Real Materialisms Please Step Forward?” Journal of Material Culture. 26(3), 318-21. | 2021 |
| “When Defense is not Enough. On things, archaeological theory, and the politics of misrepresentation” (with B. Olsen). Forum Kritische Archäologie 10, 67-88. | 2021 |
| “Regrounding Chorographically.” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 34(1) (Response to Review Feature on Old Lands, by invitation). 124-31. | 2021 |
| “A Journey to A Chorography.” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 34(1) (Review Feature on Old Lands, by invitation). 109-11. | 2021 |
| “Finding symmetry? Archaeology, objects, and posthumanism.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 31(3), 477-85. | 2021 |
| “Through the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine.” (with C.L. Francisco) In B. Olsen, M. Burström, C. DeSilvey, & Þ. Péturdóttir (eds) After Discourse: Things, Affects, Ethics. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. (257-81). | 2021 |
| “Matter.” In H. Callan (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Wiley Blackwell. (9pp.). | 2021 |
| "Objecthood." In L. Wilkie & J. Chenoweth (eds.) A Cultural History of Objects: Modern Period, 1900 to Present. London: Bloomsbury, (40pp.). | 2020 |
| "Hypanthropos. On apprehending and approaching that which is in excess of monstrosity, with special consideration given to the photography of Edward Burtynsky." A special issue of The Journal of Contemporary Archaeology (edited by Matthew Reilly), 6(1), 136-53. | 2019 |
| "Symmetrical Archaeology" In C. Smith (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. New York: Springer, (15pp.). | 2019 |
| "Chronopolitics and Archaeology." (Revised version) In C. Smith (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. New York: Springer, (6pp.). | 2019 |
| "Symmetrical Archaeology" In S.L. López Varela (ed.) The SAS Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences. Wiley Blackwell, (3pp.). | 2019 |
| "Describing Hermion/Ermioni. Between Pausanias and Digital Maps, a Topology." (with C. Lightfoot) In M. Gillings, P. Hacigüzeller & G. Lock (eds.) Re-mapping Archaeology. London: Routledge, (27pp.). | 2018 |
| "For the objects, archaeology, and the archaeological." Archaeological Dialogues. 25(1), 28-34. | 2018 |
| "The End of the Neolithic? At the emergence of the Anthropocene" In S.E. Pilaar Birch (ed.) Multispecies Archaeology. London: Routledge. | 2018 |
| "Complexities and Emergence: The Case of Argos." In A.R. Knodell and T.P. Leppard (eds.) Regional Approaches to Society and Complexity Studies in Honor of John F. Cherry. London: Equinox. | 2017 |
| "Things are the Grounds of All Archaeology." In J.M. Blaising, J.P. Legendre, and L. Olivier (eds.) Clashes of Times: Archaeology in the Age of Presentism, Louvain: Louvain University Press. | 2017 |
| "Archaeology, symmetry, and the ontology of things: A response to critics" (with Bjørnar Olsen) Archaeological Dialogues 22(2), 187-97. | 2015 |
| "Bovine Urbanism: The Ecological Corpulence of Bos Urbanus." In. B. Clarke (ed.) Earth, Life & System: Interdisciplinary Essays on Environment and Evolution. Fordham University Press, 225-49. | 2015 |
| "Archaeology and the Second Empiricism." In F. Herschend, C. Hillerdal and J. Siapkas (eds.) Debating Archaeological Empiricism. London: Routledge, 37-61. | 2015 |
Awards
| President's Research Professorship, Texas Tech University | 2019-2025 |
| Senior Research Fellowship, Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. | 2016-2017 |
| President's Mid-Career Faculty Award | 2015-2016 |
| TTU Humanities Research Fellowship, the Humanities Center at Texas Tech | 2015 |
| Donnelley Family Fellowship, The National Humanities Center | 2014-2015 |
| Texas Tech Alumni Association New Faculty Award | 2013 |
Photo: Ron Jautz 2015
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