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.

Ask a Scholar: Nedhal Jarrar

Apr 1, 2021 Posted in ACOR Projects, AskAScholar, Fellowships, Insights, أكور بالعربي Tagged with Amman, fellowships, free knowledge, industrial heritage, jordanian graduate student scholarship, Wikipedia

Translated by Jackie Salzinger. You can also read this interview in Arabic. This written interview is part of a new series on Insights: “Ask A Scholar,” through which we highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The following conversation with Nedhal Jarrar (ACOR Jordanian Graduate Student Scholarship recipient, 2020–2021) took place by email…

Archaeology in Jordan and the Pandemic

Mar 3, 2021 Posted in Insights Tagged with Archaeology, Archaeology in Jordan, Ayn Ghazal, community archaeology, community engagement, COVID-19, Khirbet Salameh, Madaba, Petra, publication, Rescue archaeology, Salvage archaeology

by Jack Green, Ph.D. In November 2020, ACOR published the second volume of Archaeology in Jordan  (AIJ), an open-access biennial that continues the “Archaeology in Jordan Newsletter,” which appeared in the American Journal of Archaeology from 1991 to 2016. AIJ does not provide a full representation of all the archaeological fieldwork and research conducted in the…

“An Invocation to Jesus in a Safaitic Inscription?”

Feb 17, 2021 Posted in Insights, Lecture, Research, VideoLectures Tagged with Arabia, black desert, blackdesert, eastjordan, Epigraphy, harrah, inscription, language, linguistics, newdiscovery, philology, recorded lecture

ACOR Proudly Presents:“An Invocation to Jesus in a Safaitic Inscription?” An ACOR online lecture by Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad (Ohio State University) on February 16, 2021 About the Lecture: Safaitic inscriptions constitute the largest epigraphic corpus in Jordan. “Safaitic” refers to the northernmost branch of the South Semitic alphabet, a sister of the Ancient South Arabian…

Ask a Scholar: Prof. Waleed Hazbun (Former Fellow, Political Scientist)

Feb 5, 2021 Posted in AskAScholar, Fellows, Fellowships, Insights, Petra, Research Tagged with Ask A Scholar, AUB, geography, History, political science, Said, tourism

This written interview is part of a new series on Insights: “Ask A Scholar,” through which we highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The following conversation with former fellow Waleed Hazbun (ACOR-United States Information Agency, 1997–1998), who is now professor of political science at the University of Alabama, took place by email…

ACOR Photo Archive Project 2016-2020: Building a Valuable Resource for “a Diverse, International Community”

Jan 25, 2021 Posted in Insights, Photo Archive Tagged with Archives, archivist, digital archive, Photography, photos

By Jessica Holland, Archival Projects Consultant “To reproduce an object is a task that requires know-how, but to understand what the object represents, its function or how it came to be, requires another kind of knowledge.” —Akram Zaatari, Against Photography (Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2018, p. 103) Achievements: reflections on four transformative years…

“Preserving the Cultural Heritage of the Madaba Region… Together: The Madaba Regional Archaeological Museum Project (MRAMP) and Recent Community Archaeology”

Jan 24, 2021 Posted in Insights, Lecture, Research, SCHEP, VideoLectures Tagged with community archaeology, Madaba, mosaic, museum, museum studies, recorded lecture, SCHEP

ACOR Proudly Presents:“Preserving the Cultural Heritage of the Madaba Region… Together: The Madaba Regional Archaeological Museum Project (MRAMP) and Recent Community Archaeology”An Online Lecture by Prof. Douglas R. Clark (La Sierra University) on January 19, 2021 About the Lecture: The Madaba Regional Archaeological Museum Project (MRAMP) has always been about “community archaeology,” which views archaeology…

Reconnecting with Our Heritage: How Do We Relate the Past to the Present?

Dec 22, 2020 Posted in Fellows, Fellowships, Insights, Library, Named Fellowships, أكور بالعربي

By Abbad Diraneyya لتقرأ المقال باللغة العربية هنا Under a hot October sun, from which I had nothing but a winter cap to conceal my face, the famous downtown of the Eternal City looked like a bunch of half-fallen columns emerging from a pile of rubble. “Disappointing” would be an understatement: I had patiently waited…

استعادة أواصر الصلة مع تراثنا: كيف لنا أن نربط ماضينا بحاضرنا؟

Dec 22, 2020 Posted in Insights

بقلم عبَاد ديرانيّة To read this article in English, click here. لم تكُن بحوزتي إلا قبعة شتوية لتحجب عن عينيَّ شيئاً من أشعة شمس الخريف، التي سطعت أمامي على كومة من الأطلال والأعمدة المتهاوية في مركز مدينة روما: وهو مشهدٌ أقلّ ما يُقَال عنه -بالنسبة لي- أنه “مخيّب للآمال”. كنتُ قد انتظرت هذه اللحظة بصبر…

My Petra

Dec 17, 2020 Posted in Insights Tagged with Archives, Petra

by Jane Taylor In this photo essay, writer and photographer Jane Taylor reflects on her many visits to Petra from the 1970s onward, which in turn contributed to books including Petra (1993, 2005) and Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans (2001). Something of her personal journey of discovery is told through encounters with…

Ask a Scholar: Micaela Sinibaldi, Islamic Baydha Project Director

Dec 2, 2020 Posted in AskAScholar, Fellows, Fellowships, Insights, Library, Named Fellowships, Petra Tagged with Ask A Scholar, Baydha, COVID, Crusader, Crusades, Interview, Islamic, Pottery

This written interview is part of a new series we are launching on Insights: “Ask A Scholar,” through which we hope to highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The below conversation, with former Bikai and de Vries fellow and Islamic Baydha director Micaela Sinibaldi, Ph.D., took place by email in November, 2020….

Ask A Scholar: Morgen Chalmiers, Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Fall 2020

Nov 22, 2020 Posted in AskAScholar, CAORC, Fellows, Fellowships, Hostel, Insights, Life@ACOR, Research Tagged with anthropology, ethnography, feministethnography, healthcare, intersectional, medicalanthropology, refugee studies

This written interview is part of a new series we are launching on Insights, called “Ask A Scholar,” through which we hope to highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The below conversation, with ACOR-CAORC Pre-Doctoral Fellow Morgen Chalmiers, who is in residence at ACOR during fall 2020, took place by email…

MELA Presentation: Lockdown and locked out of access to knowledge?

Nov 14, 2020 Posted in ACOR, Lecture, Library, VideoLectures Tagged with Archives, History, lecture, lecture recording, Library, photo archive, Photo archives, public lecture, research, visual heritage

by Jessica Holland On 21 October 2020, ACOR participated in the Middle East Librarians Association Annual Conference (MELA) for the first time, presenting on how our library and archives adapted to the changing conditions of the pandemic, alongside panelists from institutions across thirteen different time zones spanning from California to Qatar. Below is a text…

Reflections on Race at the Lowest Place on Earth

Nov 4, 2020 Posted in ACOR, CAORC, Insights, Research, SCHEP Tagged with Agritourism, CAORC, economics, Faculty Development Seminar, FDS, Ghawr, Ghawr as-Safi, Migration, Race, safi, SCHEP, Sugar

by Blaine Pope, Ph.D. Since I traveled to Jordan for the first time, for the January 2020 ACOR-CAORC Faculty Development Seminar “Sustainability at the Margins,” life in the United States, in Jordan, and around the world has changed noticeably. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and massive worldwide protests against racism stemming from the Black…

Heritage vs. Development: The Bayt Ras Tomb Project 2017–2019

Sep 30, 2020 Posted in Insights, Research, SCHEP, VideoLectures Tagged with arthistory, baytras, Community, Heritage, jehadharon, lecture, methodology, northernjordan, northjordan, recorded lecture, roman, romantomb, SCHEP, tomb

ACOR Proudly Presents:“Heritage vs. Development: The Bayt Ras Tomb Project 2017–2019”An Online Lecture by Jehad Haron on September 29, 2020 About the Lecture: In November 2016, a Roman-era tomb was discovered in the town of Bayt Ras, Irbid, by a team working to dig a sewage line in the area. In 2017, USAID SCHEP worked…

Making a Connection with the Past: My ACOR Internship on the Temple of the Winged Lions

Sep 15, 2020 Posted in Insights

By Nora Al Omari I joined ACOR as an intern to participate in the Temple of the Winged Lions (TWL) Publication Project, through which I have handled, documented, and rehoused objects from the temple and also managed the digitization and cataloguing of archival materials from this important Nabataean- and Roman-era site. The Temple of the…

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