Happy new year
Hello friends! I hope you all had a restful and restorative holiday break, because oof. 2021 is not letting up at all, is it? In keeping with *waves frantically at everything* my first story of the year was about a senior archaeologist accusing a junior scholar of being a Nazi when she wouldn’t let him interrupt and derail the opening plenary of the Society for Historical Archaeology conference. And because it’s 2021, he did this by using a Nazi salute and phrase, on recorded video in front 100+ of his colleagues. I was there when it happened, but like many people I didn’t realize exactly what he’d done because of the Zoom chaos (two people talking at once, video jumping back and forth, etc). His part in the scuffle around the interruption was shockingly aggressive, however, even leaving aside its outrageously inappropriate culmination—my husband ran into the room where I was watching it to see what the hell was going on. Anyway, covering harassment at archaeology conferences is apparently my calling, and I feel lucky to have editors at Science who agree that these kinds of dynamics and events deserve our attention and care. You can read my story here. It includes a video of the incident, but I also describe it in detail for those who understandably don’t want to click play. If you’d like to hear directly from Liz Quinlan, the person who was interrupted and then filed a harassment complaint, she’s written about the experience here. I’m glad that she’s felt supported by the society and other professional organizations during the process. We all know that isn’t always the case.
In other news, I finished the first draft of book chapter three (out of ten) on Friday. One-third of the way to a full first draft, which I look forward to mostly throwing away so I can write something better on its scaffolding. I’m keeping this issue short because I want to continue chilling out, but first, a programming note! Next week, my sister Carrie and I will be having a chat about Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, a completely deranged book about creativity that I’ve recently become convinced is 100% true. It’s definitely a book you can read in a week, if you want to. See you then!