Friday, March 9, 2007

At the High Table once again

While Mark was down here in Long Beach we decided to finally invest some energy and money into getting the giant pile of RCD videos digitized and on DVDs. This pile of videos, a product of our mid-90s effort to document Dunnell's classes for posterity, represents several of his most influential classes: Archy 497, 498, 479 and 575. Perhaps of interest to only a small few, the videos capture the essence of what was amazing about graduate school in the University of Washington during this time: a somewhat cantankerous man logically constructing archaeology from first principles to sweeping explanations. Although initially baffling, the lessons learned from those classes provided immense metalevel and philosophical understanding of the practice of science and its conceptual framework. Although there are those who really disliked the class, there are probably few that weren't impacted by it in a deep way. Those were amazing classes. Well, to mark the movement of RCD into the digital world, I am happy to announce web versions of Dunnell. I'll try to get more up as they are finished. But for now, treat yourself to the first two lectures of Archy 497: Formal Theory. http://darwin.anth.csulb.edu/rcd/497/Lectures.html

2 comments:

Jen said...

Thank you! I am downloading these and will look forward to the series. I'm only on minute 15 but already am intrigued.

Dunnell's mad scientist hairdo is great.

Unknown said...

RCD isn't one to care about looks - but when he taught he always wore a full suit. On days he didn't teach, he wore jeans, a jean shirt and usually no shoes.