by Danielle Wolfson I am an emerging professional in cultural heritage, chosen by the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) to participate in their International Exchange Program (IEP), an honor that brought me to Amman for the summer of 2022. At the American Center of Research, I worked on…
Research
Animal Lives at Petra
by Kathryn Grossman I have been in Jordan for two months now, and Tom Parker’s presence is everywhere—in my work, in conversations with colleagues, on the stiff breeze at Petra. Despite twenty years in Near Eastern archaeology, this is my first time working in Jordan; I had just imagined he would be here when I…
Traversing the Landscape
by Amy Karoll I am currently a visiting professor in the Writings Program at New York University-Abu Dhabi and was an NEH Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Center of Research from March to August 2021. I arrived at the American Center in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and fresh from receiving my doctorate in…
Analyzing Petra’s Small Finds
by McClean Pink I am a master’s student in the Anthropology Department at East Carolina University. Throughout the months of June and July 2022, I held a Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship at the American Center of Research in Amman and, while resident there, used their resources to complete the data collection for my master’s…
Jordanian Women and the Digital Economy During COVID-19
by Allison J. Anderson Jordan’s low female labor force participation rate has long confounded policymakers, researchers, and activists. Despite achieving progress on several determinants of female labor force participation over the last decade, including increasing levels of female educational attainment, higher ages of marriage, and lower rates of fertility, less than 15 percent of women are…
Ammonite Kings and Gods in Stone: Reading the Iconography in Its Broader Near Eastern Context
by Joel S. Burnett A visit to the Jordan Archaeological Museum on the Amman Citadel or the Jordan Museum in Ras al-Ayn brings you up close with multiple examples of stone statuary from Iron Age Amman (ca. 1150–550 BCE). These impressive sculptures include miniature statues of standing anthropomorphic figures and life-size and nearly life-size sculpted…
Exploring the Political Economy of Cultural Heritage
by Charlotte Vekemans “Heritage is Jordan’s oil.” This statement, which I heard from heritage experts, development workers, and Jordanian government officials, has come to be the most captivating way for me to summarize my PhD project. With the support of a Harrell Family Fellowship granted by the American Center of Research, I conducted field research…
Ethnographic Research on Graffiti/Street Art, Youth, and Urban Space in Amman
by Kyle Benedict Craig With support from an ACOR-CAORC Predoctoral Fellowship, I conducted dissertation fieldwork on Amman’s graffiti/street art scene from May to August 2021. During this period of on-site fieldwork, I attended art exhibitions, observed graffiti/street art painting sessions, participated in walking tours of Amman’s public art scene, and conducted semiformal interviews with artists,…
Analysis of the Early Islamic Pottery from Tell Abu Sarbut, Jordan (700–1000 CE)
by Katarína Mokránová I remember well the time when I was learning how to write. It took years for my first crooked letters to become the handwriting that, admittedly, I am still not quite so proud of today. When I get tired, the text that I write transforms into an indecipherable sea of wavy lines….
“Ask A Scholar” with predoctoral fellow Kendra Kintzi
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 Kendra Kintzi (ACOR-CAORC predoctoral fellow, 2021–2022) took place by email in July 2021. Thanks for joining us on Insights! Tell us a little more about yourself…
The Challenges and Benefits of Preservation: Reflections on “Human Heritage”
by Carly J. Cormier The most recent ACOR virtual lecture event, “Human Heritage: Preserving Palmyra, Petra, and Hatra,” was cohosted with the Getty Research Institute (GRI) to commemorate the launch of the Getty’s new interactive online exhibition, Return to Palmyra. The presenters discussed the unique set of challenges regarding preserving the cultural and physical remains of…
Wellbeing and Living Well: Ethnographic Approaches to Health and Disability
by Christine Sargent, with Timothy Loh and Morgen Chalmiers What can ethnography contribute to our understandings of health and disability in Jordan and elsewhere? In this roundtable event, Morgen Chalmiers (University of California San Diego), Timothy Loh (MIT), and I offered provisional responses by drawing on fieldwork in Jordan and the United States while reflecting…
التراث الإنساني: الحفاظ على تدمر، البتراء والحضر
المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث و معهد بحوث جيتي يقدمان وبكل فخر التراث الإنساني:الحفاظ على تدمر، البترا والحضربرنامج عبر الفضاء الإلكترونييوم الأربعاء 16 حزيران وصف البرنامج: تحكي التواريخ القديمة لمدينة تدمر (سوريا) والبترا (الأردن) والحضر (العراق) قصة التبادل الثقافي بين هذه المدين، حيث تشارك سكانها طرق التجارة، كما قاموا ببناء آثار مماثلة، وعبدوا آلهة محلية وإقليمية مشتركة. ورغم…
“Human Heritage: Preserving Palmyra, Petra, and Hatra”
تصفّح/ي المعلومات باللغة العربيّة هنا ACOR and the Getty Research Institute Proudly Present:“Human Heritage: Preserving Palmyra, Petra, and Hatra”Hosted on Zoom on Wednesday, June 16, 2021 This program is also available in Arabic. About the program: Cohosted in Arabic and English by the Getty Research Institute and the American Center of Research in Jordan, this…