archaeologist @ Stanford - [main website link]

Senior founding faculty of Stanford Archaeology Center, Michael is a Professor of Classics, a member of the Center for Design Research in Stanford's d.school, and teaches in the Programs in Writing and Rhetoric, Science Technology and Society, Urban Studies, as well as Classics and Archaeology.

One of the most original and influential of contemporary archaeologists, Michael has been at the forefront of archaeological thought and practice since the 1980s, pioneering new ways of understanding and explaining, engaging with Graeco-Roman antiquity and European prehistory, mobilizing remains of the past all around us — instigating changes in archaeology and how we all work with remains of the past. A specialist in long-term perspectives on design and creativity, innovation and social change, he explores connections across the sciences, humanities, and arts in research collaborations and outreach through and beyond the academy, tapping more than $32m of funding over the last 25 years.

Exploring the archaeological imagination

What is archaeology? Archaeology is what archaeologists do. This answer is not a tautology. It refers us to the practices of archaeology. And to the conditions under which archaeologists work - the institutions and infrastructures, the politics and pragmatics of getting archaeological work done.

If history is about understanding the past, archaeology is about what we do with what remains of the past in the present. Archaeologists work on what is left of the past. Archaeology is about relationships - between past and present, between archaeologist and traces and remains. Archaeology is a set of practices that connect past and present - working with what remains to translate, to turn them into something sensible - inventory, account, story, explanation, whatever.

Archaeology is a way of acting and thinking - about what is left of the past, about the temporality of remainder, about material and temporal processes like loss and decay to which people and their goods are subject, about the processes of order and entropy, of making, consuming and discarding at the heart of human experience.

"Archaeological Sensibility" and "Archaeological Imagination" are terms that summarize these mediating and transformative practices. Sensibility refers us to the perceptual components of how we engage with the remains of the past. Imagination refers us to the creative component - to the transforming work that is done with what is left over.

Archaeology - working with what remains - this means we are all archaeologists now.

Current projects

Archaeological history — building scenarios. Greece and Rome: a new model of antiquity. With Gary Devore. A project concerned with how one might conceive of antiquity as a kind of archaeological prehistory, retold through speculative fabulation. Against conventional narrative is offered a model of ancient lifeworlds conveyed through 45 personae and scenarios.

Archaeological sites — encountering location. Against place: a border archaeology. Based on archaeological itineraries in the northern borders of England/Scotland, including prehistoric and Roman field research, this project explores border crossings, trespass and transgression in questioning the character of space and place, site and region.

Archaeological praxis — performance design.Theatre/Archaeology: performing remains. With Mike Pearson. This book sums up 30 years of collaboration with performance artist Mike Pearson. In five portfolios of case studies in performance design they set out a pragmatics and methodology of deep mapping contemporary antiquity and prehistory.

Archaeological actuality — for the future. Archaeologies of Nature in Art: from Landscape to Climate Breakdown. With Gabriella Giannachi. This project mobilizes an archaeology of arts practices, from prehistory to contemporary art, to offer action-oriented responses to climate change in a reframing of the concept of nature.

Applied Archaeology — design foresight. Project Athena: Innovation in and through Learning. With Aisin Corporation led by Kenji Suzuki and in collaboration with Kimihiko Iwamura. Developing learning community and competencies in creative pragmatics — designing and implementing a strategy of corporate culture change.

Research interests and expertise

The development and history of city living - rooted in research into Greek and Roman cities.

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.

Long-term social and cultural 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 - because we always experience the world through 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.