Noteworthy

JOHN PAPADOPOLOUS to discuss victory monuments on the Acropolis and Agora

John Papadopolous will discuss “Framing Victory: Salamis, the Athenian Acropolis and the Agora” at a meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America to be held September 25 at 2 p.m. at Concordia University in Irvine, California. Papadopoulos is professor in the department of Classics at UCLA and a core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute.

UCLA ranked #1 public university for sixth straight year

UCLA has been ranked the top public university for the sixth straight year by U.S. News & World Report in its annual “Best Colleges” rankings.

PIPHAL HENG discusses Angkor Wat on BBC Radio 4

Piphal Heng, postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Program for Early Modern Southeast Asia, was featured in a BBC Radio episode of In Our Time which focused on the Cambodian site of Angkor Wat. In Our Time is hosted by broadcaster, author, and parliamentarian Melvyn Bragg and focuses on “ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.” This was its first coverage of Angkor Wat. The program, which was aired in June, is now available as podcast here or through Apple podcasts.

STEPHEN ACABADO featured twice on Philippine news website

Rappler, a Philippine online news website, featured Stephen Acabado turning over Philippine archaeological specimens from the Fowler Museum at UCLA to the National Museum of the Philippines, represented by Director-General Jeremy Barns, on July 21, 2022. The specimens are believed to have been brought to the United States in the 1970s for scientific study. Acabado is associate professor of Anthropology at UCLA and chair of the Archaeology program at the Cotsen Institute. In an opinion piece published in Rappler on June 22, Acabado was co-author of an article with the title Archaeologists: Gatekeepers of authenticity?”

ELLEN PEARLSTEIN presents her research in Europe

Ellen Pearlstein, professor in the UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage and the Department of Information Studies, recently presented two invited lectures in Europe. On May 16, 2022, she addressed the president’s meeting of the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers Organizations at the Acropolis Museum in Athens on the subject: “The Future of Our Field is Social.”  On June 22, she discussed “Sustainability Tools in Cultural Heritage; Accessing a New Mindset” at a session of Youth in Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Rome, convened by Professor Sarah Nunberg of the Pratt Institute in New York and a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

WILLEKE WENDRICH co-organizes session for the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists

Together with Annelou van Gijn of Leiden University (the Netherlands), Willeke Wendrich, director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, co-organizes a session for the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists to be held in Budapest, Hungary, August 13–September 3, 2022. This session, with the title “Apprenticeship as Research Method” is part of the theme "Archaeologists and Archaeology Here and Now.”

JASON DE LEÓN quoted on impact of climate crisis on immigration

Jason De León, professor of Anthropology and core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute, discussed the relationship between the climate crisis and immigration in the July 6, 2022 issue of The Independent, a British newspaper.

JO ANNE VAN TILBURG keynote speaker at Leiden Conference

Jo Anne Van Tilburg gave the keynote lecture entitled "Here be Dragons: Archaeological Data and Rapanui Resilience" to open the Tenth International Conference on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Pacific: Change and Resilience, June 18–24, 2022 at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Dr. Van Tilburg is director of the Rock Art Archive and associated researcher at the Cotsen Institute.

Van Tilburg’s lecture was attended by both the current and the previous Chilean ambassadors to the Netherlands. The latter undertook a ceremonial mission to present the Rapa Nui delegation a formal letter of apology from the Dutch government acknowledging that in 1722, Dutch visitors arrived as the first Europeans on the island and, upon landing, inadvertently killed about a dozen Rapanui people who peacefully greeted them. The letter of apology was accepted by Leo Pakarati on behalf of the community.

During the following archaeological session, Van Tilburg presented a paper entitled "Human Creativity and the Quantification of Objective Evidence” followed by a well-attended public lecture on "Rapa Nui: The Culture of Craft," which summed up and closed the conference.

The conference was attended by scholars from Europe and the Americas, including a delegation from Rapa Nui, which is still closed to visitors because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Documentaries by Rapanui filmmaker Leo Pakarati and others were screened during the conference.

STEPHEN ACABADO exhibit featured on CNN Philippines

An article published on July 7, 2022 by CNN Philippines Life features information from an ethnographic exhibit entitled “Breaking Myths: Food Feasts and the Ifugao,” organized by Stephen Acabado, director of the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies and core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute. The event was held May 26–June 25, 2022 in the General Community Hall at the Philippine Consulate in Los Angeles, in conjunction with the Philippine Consulate General. The project was designed to explore the role of rice and feasts in Ifugao resistance against Spanish colonialism through a month-long photo exhibit featuring ethnographic materials from the Cordillera Region. View the digital exhibit here.

JUSTIN DUNNAVANT featured on multiple media platforms

Justin Dunnavant, assistant professor of anthropology and core faulty member of the Cotsen Institute, has had his research recently featured on several media platforms. He was profiled in the June 14 UCLA Magazine article “Deep Diver: Justin Dunnavant.” He was interviewed on May 4 on Bay Area radio station KALW on the topic of the environmental effects of the global slave trade. Another piece aired on June 3 when he was interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio as a National Geographic Explorer on “What we can learn from sunken slave ships.” Dunnavant was referenced in a May 15 broadcast on a local NBC news channel in a story discussing the Alabama Historical Commission providing updates on Clotilda recovery. He was also featured on Dan Snow’s May 15 podcast “Diving for Lost Slave Shipwrecks.”
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