Exploring complexity and self-organization with a simulation tool

Note: In March and April 2023, I completed a Visiting Researcher Fellowship at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. I reworked, refined, expanded, and much improved, I think, RGBCatastrophe, my computer simulation tool for exploring, teaching, and thinking about complexity and self-organization. Here I give a preview of the latest…

High school students taught me how to teach

It was almost 30 years ago, in the final few days of my undergrad. I was walking into the department office for some last minute paperwork. Vince was walking out. He said he was glad he bumped into me. Vince was a bit older than the rest of us. He was already married and had…

I teach what I don’t know

I structure my courses around what I don’t know. Since we know so little about the past, archaeology is well suited to that approach, but I imagine other disciplines are, too. I start a course by asking one of the great unanswered questions of the discipline: is cultural innovation like random mutation? Is there archaeological…

When did the overhand flashlight hold become dominant in film and television?

In winter 2015, I taught ANTH 381 at McGill University. As a class project, we studied the evolution of flashlight holding in film and television. We started from the observation that in contemporary film and television, flashlights tend to be held in an overhand style, but that in older productions, they tend to be held…