Changes…

It hasn’t been a particularly well kept secret – as I’ve been dropping not so veiled hints on Twitter and have flat out told some colleagues face-to-face – but yes, I’m undergoing some professional changes.  Don’t worry, I’m not going that far – I will be staying at MSU.  The long and short of it is that I will be trading in my rather complicated appointment (Telecom owning 25% of me, History owning 75% of me, and living at MATRIX) for something a little less complicated (and a hell of a lot rewarding for me personally).  As of August 15th, I will be moving over 100% to Anthropology.  In addition, I will become the new Associate Director of MATRIX.  In Anthropology (aside from regular teaching and research duties), I’ll be coordinating their online & open access learning efforts.  I’ll also be developing interdisciplinary graduate curriculum in cultural heritage informatics (the form that curriculum takes is still very much up in the air).  One of the components of this cultural heritage curriculum will be a cultural heritage informatics field school that will run in tandem with the MSU Campus Archaeology Field School.  I’ll also be forrming some sort of cultural heritage informatics working group (composed of both graduate students and faculty) in the department.  At MATRIX, I will continue my research & development work in digital humanities and cultural heritage informatics – with a particular (though certainly not exclusive) focus on serious games/meaningful play for cultural heritage learning, outreach, and engagement. MATRIX has been my research home for several years, and I feel very comfortable there. As a result, I’m incredibly happy to step into a more influential leadership role.

As most of you know, I am an archaeologist.  For several years, I haven’t really been in touch with that.  Yes, I’ve taught ancient history classes (all of which have been infused with an enormous amount of anthropology and archaeology), but I haven’t been living and breathing archaeology on a daily basis, it hasn’t been at the core of my professional being. In hindsight, this has taken a bit of tole on me.  The reality of things is that I was never really a “citizen” in History (nor Telecom).  I could teach the classes (and I’ve taught some classes that I absolutely love), but I was always somewhat of an immigrant (an immigrant who spoke another language and saw things from a different disciplinary perspective).  The result is that this move  honestly feels like returning home after a long stay in another county.

There are definitely some downsides to this.  History was given the opportunity to pick up a piece of me (1 class/year).  They unfortunately declined (a mystery to me as to why).  The result is that I’m going to have to abandon several classes that I worked hard to develop and enjoyed teaching quite a bit.  Among these are my History of the Modern Comic Book class, my Ancient Egypt & Popular Culture class, my History of the Future class, and my History of the Digital Age class. As I developed these classes, and was the sole instructor, they will most likely never be taught again. Walking away from these classes is very hard. The upside is that all of the course sites (with all of the related course media) will stay live, open, and accessible as log as humanly possible.  Also, I’ve recorded lectures for a great number of my classes (some classes have one or two lectures recorded, while other classes have all of the lectures recorded).  I’ll be going through these slowly (editing, compressing, etc.) and putting them online for anyone to download.  I’m currently editing the raw recordings from my History of the Modern Comic Book class (the class for which I have the most complete lecture recordings).  When I’ve finished with that class, I’ll be putting the entire class up on iTunes.

The same bitter sweetness goes for the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media (who have owned 25% of me for the past few years). I will no longer be teaching my Digital Games & Society class (which I developed, and feel very close to), nor will I be taking on serious game MA students as advisees any more.

The good thing is that I’ve got an exciting slate of classes on the horizon in Anthropology.  In the fall I’m teaching a class on pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology. In the spring, I’m teaching in intro to ancient Egyptian archaeology & social history. The year after that, I’m going to be teaching a grad class on cultural heritage informatics (embracing a DIY “more hack, less yack/more grok, less talk” ethos), as well as a grad seminar called Scholarly Practice in the Digital Age (which will most likely be marketed to grad students across the College of Social Sciences – and also have a a strong hacker/DIY vibe). The bottom line is that I’ll have no shortage of great classes to teach.

The other thing that I must mention is that even though I’m moving into an anthropology department (and back to being an archaeologist), I’m probably not going back into the field.  I haven’t been a practicing field archaeologist for years, and my research interests have diverged from “trowel-in-the-ground” kind of work.

The other extremely important thing that I must mention is that this move would not have been possible without the efforts of Lynne Goldstein.  It is absolutely no exaggeration that Lynne made this happen, and for that I am eternally grateful.  I would also be remiss if I didn’t give a thankful shout out to Jodie O’Gorman (chair of Anthropology), who fiercely supported my move from the get go.

The bottom line is that I feel exuberant about these changes. For the first time in a long time (relatively speaking), I feel like my professional life is starting to defrag.