Brittany Barrineau is a Ph.D. candidate in Geography at the University of Kentucky and an ACOR-CAORC Fellow in the fall of 2016. Her research project, “Exporting Heritage and Highlighting Politics: Extra Virgin Olive Oil Production in Jordan,” examines how state power, international geopolitics and place based identities converge in the complex relationship between farmers, their…
How do regular people respond and adapt to “major structural changes that upend normal social processes?” This question is at the heart of Rana B. Khoury’s work, which explores the new “normal” that civilians in Syria have created in response to the Syrian civil war. Inspired to “tell the stories of individuals and communities experiencing…
Recent ACOR-CAORC fellow and archaeologist Kathleen Bennallack writes below about her current research in southern Jordan. During the 2015–16 academic year, I spent more than six months at ACOR conducting dissertation research—learning stone tool types and how they change through time; learning how to read climate data; finding publications that are nearly impossible to find…
Recent ACOR-CAORC fellow George Potter writes about his current research into Jordanian films and the social geography of locations in Jordan and Palestine included in those films. As I finish my research in Jordan, much of the world has turned its attention to the Summer Olympics. I spend most of my nights watching film, theater,…
Reality shifts under an artist’s brush. Are urban communities also transformed by the presence of artists? This is one of the research questions pursued by Dr. Aseel Sawalha, a professor of anthropology at Fordham University in New York City. She is ACOR’s 2016-2017 NEH Fellow, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), pursuing…
Piotr Makowski is a field archaeologist who has participated in excavations in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Cyprus, Poland and the Ukraine. He first visited Jordan in 2015 with a small study tour supported by the University of Warsaw. The Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship has enabled Piotr to work on a research project that will contribute…
Catherine Maier is an undergraduate in Anthropology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Her passion for geology and archaeology led her to apply for the Groot Fellowship to join excavations at Wadi Qattafi and work with Dr. Gary Rollefson as part of the Eastern Badia Archaeological project. The summer 2016 dig aimed to uncover…
Austin “Chad” Hill, 2015–2016 CAORC Post Doctorate Fellow Chad Hill preparing to launch a fixed wing drone at Feifa, Jordan 2014 (Photo by Morag Kersel) Chad Hill is an archaeologist who specializes in the rapidly developing field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based surveying. He uses aerial photography and 3D photogrammetry to identify archaeological sites, document excavations, and…
Dr. Suzanne Richard is an ACOR-CAORC post-doctoral fellow in residence at ACOR in the summer and autumn of 2016. A distinguished professor of history and archaeology at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, she has been working in Jordan for more than thirty years. A leading expert in the archaeology and history of the Early Bronze…
José Ciro Martínez, 2015–2016 CAORC Pre-Doctoral Fellow José Ciro Martínez is a pre-doctorate Fellow at ACOR conducting research in Jordan until December 2015. He is completing his Ph.D. in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Before his ACOR-CAORC fellowship, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that gave him the opportunity…
Kathleen Bennallack, 2015–2016 CAORC Pre-Doctoral Fellow Kathleen Bennalack (center) excavating in the Feynan region in 2011. Photo courtesy of K. Bennallack. Kathleen Bennallack is a ACOR–CAORC Pre-Doctoral fellow at ACOR in the 2015-2016 academic year. Her research focuses on the Late Neolithic Era in the Southern Levant (6400-5000 BCE). These were early human societies engaged…
Ali Hamdan, 2015–2016 CAORC Pre-Doctoral Fellow Ali Hamdan is an ACOR-CAORC pre-doctorate Fellow conducting research in Jordan in the fall of 2015 until January 2016. He is completing his PhD. in the Department of Geography at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Before coming to Jordan, Ali lived and conducted research in Beirut,…
Craig Harvey is conducting research in Jordan in the summer of 2015 on ceramic building materials from a Roman fort at Humayma and from a Roman bath house at ‘Ayn Gharandal. Craig has always been interested in bath houses, heating systems, and construction materials. He is also pursuing a side project to examine the remains…