Education
Smith received an Master of Philisophy from Cambridge University (1991) and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Arizona"s Department of Anthropology (1996).
( Set on a broad isthmus between the Black and Caspian Se...)
Set on a broad isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas, Caucasia has traditionally been portrayed as either a well-trod highway linking southwest Asia and the Eurasian Steppe or an isolated periphery of the political and cultural centers of the ancient world. Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond critically re-examines traditional archaeological work in the region, assembling accounts of recent investigations by an international group of scholars from the Caucasus, its neighbors, Europe, and the United States. The twelve chapters in this book address the ways archaeologists must re-conceptualize the region within our larger historical and anthropological frameworks of thought, presenting critical new materials from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age. Challenging traditional models of economic, political, cultural, and social marginality that read the past through Cold War geographies, Archaeology in the Borderlands provides a new challenge to long dominant interpretations of the pre-, proto-, and early history of Eurasia, opening new possibilities for understanding a region that is critical to regional order in the post-Soviet era. This collection represents the first attempt to grapple with the problems and possibilities for archaeology in the Caucasus and its neighboring regions sparked by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent states.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931745013/?tag=2022091-20
( How do landscapes—defined in the broadest sense to inco...)
How do landscapes—defined in the broadest sense to incorporate the physical contours of the built environment, the aesthetics of form, and the imaginative reflections of spatial representations—contribute to the making of politics? Shifting through the archaeological, epigraphic, and artistic remains of early complex societies, this provocative and far-reaching book is the first systematic attempt to explain the links between spatial organization and politics from an anthropological point of view. The Classic-period Maya, the kingdom of Urartu, and the cities of early southern Mesopotamia provide the focal points for this multidimensional account of human polities. Are the cities and villages in which we live and work, the lands that are woven into our senses of cultural and personal identity, and the national territories we occupy merely stages on which historical processes and political rituals are enacted? Or do the forms of buildings and streets, the evocative sensibilities of architecture and vista, the aesthetics of place conjured in art and media constitute political landscapes—broad sets of spatial practices critical to the formation, operation, and overthrow of polities, regimes, and institutions? Smith brings together contemporary theoretical developments from geography and social theory with anthropological perspectives and archaeological data to pursue these questions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520237501/?tag=2022091-20
anthropologist historian university professor
Smith received an Master of Philisophy from Cambridge University (1991) and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Arizona"s Department of Anthropology (1996).
Beginning in the Fall of 2011, Smith joined the faculty of the Cornell University"s Department of Anthropology where he currently serves as Department Chairperson. Smith"s research is dedicated to the archaeology and anthropology of the South Caucasus, particularly the are of modern Armenia, where most of his work has been focused. His work investigates "the role that the material world—everyday objects, representational media, natural and built landscapes—plays in our political lives".
( How do landscapes—defined in the broadest sense to inco...)
( Set on a broad isthmus between the Black and Caspian Se...)
He was then a member of the University of Michigan"s Society of Fellows from 1997-2000 before joining the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.