Insights

Welcome to Insights! Formerly our long-running quarterly e-update, since 2020, Insights has been our blog, hosting essays by fellows, interns, staff, and others.

Community Engagement in Rock Art Management in Wadi Rum – An ACOR & USAID SCHEP Video Lecture by Dr. Kaelin Groom

Sep 27, 2017 Posted in SCHEP, VideoLectures Tagged with geology, Heritage, Rock Art, SCHEP, wadi rum

The ACOR Video Lecture Series provides accessible discussions of new research into the past and present of Jordan and the broader Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean worlds. This video was adapted from the August 2017 public lecture delivered at ACOR by Dr. Kaelin Groom, whose research interests in environmental science include cultural stone decay and quantifying tangible…

Patricia Ward, ACOR-CAORC Fellow, Fall 2017

Sep 24, 2017 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Profile Tagged with humanitarian relief, local staff, organizational studies

Patricia “Trish” Ward is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at Boston University and an ACOR-CAORC Fellow, Fall 2017. Her research looks at questions related to humanitarian aid, migration management, and labor in contexts considered crisis zones. Trish’s project in Jordan is titled “How Humanitarian Relief Really ‘Works’: Examining International Organizations’ Use of Local Labor in Crisis…

Ian W. N. Jones, ACOR-CAORC Fellow, Fall 2017

Sep 19, 2017 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Profile Tagged with Archaeology, CAORC Fellow

Ian W. N. Jones is a Ph.D. candidate in the Anthropology program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and an ACOR-CAORC Fellow in fall 2017. His research project is titled “Economy, Society, and Small-Scale Industry: Social Approaches to Middle Islamic Copper Production in Southern Jordan.” During his fellowship at ACOR, Ian is focused…

Steven Schaaf, ACOR-CAORC Fellow, Fall 2017

Sep 18, 2017 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Profile Tagged with CAORC Fellow, judiciary, political science

Steven Schaaf is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University and an ACOR-CAORC fellow in fall 2017. His research focuses on the comparative analysis of administrative courts in Jordan, Palestine and Egypt. Why do some people choose to pursue their grievances through legal channels, while others do not? What is the…

Who Were the People in the Neolithic Black Desert?

Sep 1, 2017 Posted in Lecture, NEH Tagged with Archaeology, black desert, Jordan, NEH Fellowship, neolithic

An ACOR Public Lecture Who Were the People in the Neolithic Black Desert? Wednesday 18 October 2017 at 6:00 pm Dr. Gary Rollefson ACOR National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow & Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Whitman College Wednesday 18 October 2017 at 6:00 pm To be followed by a reception About the lecture Before…

Lithics and Learning—Communities of Practice at Kharaneh IV

Aug 27, 2017 Posted in Fellows, Fellowships, Life@ACOR, Named Fellowships, Research Tagged with Archaeology, Flint, flintknapping, Russell Fellowship

An ACOR Blog article by recent ACOR fellow Felicia De Peña on her research into stone tool making and experimental archaeology. Felicia was awarded the Kenneth W. Russell Fellowship (2017-2018). For years, I have been drawn to stone tools and the stories that they can tell us about our prehistoric ancestors; from subsistence strategies to…

Include Umm el-Jimal in Tourism Itineraries – An ACOR & USAID SCHEP Video Lecture

Aug 20, 2017 Posted in ACOR, SCHEP, VideoLectures Tagged with Archaeology, SCHEP, tourism, Umm el-Jimal

The ACOR Video Lecture Series provides accessible discussions of new research into the past and present of Jordan and the broader Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean worlds. This video was adapted from the July 2017 public lecture delivered at ACOR by Dr. Bert de Vries, Professor of Archaeology at Calvin College and Director of the Umm…

Zachary Sheldon, ACOR-CAORC Fellow, Fall 2017

Aug 12, 2017 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Profile Tagged with anthropology, Iraq, Iraqi diaspora

Zachary Sheldon is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Chicago and an ACOR-CAORC Fellow in fall 2017. His research project is titled “Guests in the ‘Garden’: An Ethnography of the National Present among Iraqi Residents of Amman, Jordan” and it is an exploration of young Iraqis whose families left Iraq and have come…

Mining Manuscripts of the Ottoman Archives

Aug 10, 2017 Posted in ACOR, CAORC, Fellows, Research Tagged with Archives, CAORC Fellowship, islam, Islamic Law

Sarah Islam is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Princeton University and an ACOR-CAORC pre-doctoral fellow for 2015–2016. In order to complete her research project, which deals with the evolving historical discourse on blasphemy as an Islamic legal category, from the medieval period until the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Islam needed to painstakingly…

Susynne McElrone, ACOR-CAORC Postdoctoral Fellow, Fall 2017

Aug 9, 2017 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Profile Tagged with Archival research, Ottoman Era

Susynne McElrone, a historian studying late-Ottoman Palestine, is interested in rural socioeconomic history, land tenure, and the implementation of property-tenure reforms following the promulgation of the 1858 Land Code. Significantly, Ottoman property-tenure reforms in the second half of the 19th century continue to influence land tenure in the Levant today. They institutionalized individually held, centrally…

Wadi Ramm Survey Archive Finds New Home at ACOR

Aug 8, 2017 Posted in ACOR Tagged with AMAES, Jobling Archive, Rock Art, survey archaeology, Wadi Ramm

In September 2016, ACOR happily received the project archive of the ‘Aqaba-Ma‘an Archaeological and Epigraphic Survey (AMAES), directed by the late William (Bill) Jobling of the University of Sydney from 1980 to 1990. The pathbreaking survey, which documented Wadi Ramm’s exceptional landscapes and archaeological remains with thousands of color and black and white photographs, was…

Sea Peoples and neo-Hittites — an ACOR Video Lecture by Dr. Timothy P. Harrison

Aug 2, 2017 Posted in ACOR, VideoLectures Tagged with Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, lecture, research

The ACOR Video Lecture Series provides accessible discussions of new research into the past and present of Jordan and the broader Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean worlds. This video was adapted from the May 2017 public lecture delivered by Dr. Timothy Harrison, Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Toronto. Please note that…

From the Ground Up: Community Engagement in Rock Art Management in Wadi Rum

Jul 16, 2017 Posted in Lecture, SCHEP Tagged with Rock Art, wadi rum

Public Lecture Announcement: About the Lecture: As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Wadi Rum is a prime tourist destination, home to thousands of rock inscriptions and petroglyphs—many of which are actually in grave danger of decay. This lecture discusses the many challenges facing current rock art management in the Valley of the Moon and the…

The Evolution of Identity and Social Conflict in Networked Jordan

Jun 19, 2017 Posted in ACOR, Fellows, NEH, Research Tagged with anthropology, NEH, tribes of jordan

Geoffrey Hughes is a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellow at ACOR and an anthropologist and lecturer at the London School of Economics. He is residing at ACOR during summer 2017 while he pursues his project entitled, “Nation and Agnation: Kinship, Conflict, and Social Control in Contemporary Jordan.” His essay below is a brief…

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