Summer Blockbuster 3: Avatar - Ep 200

To wrap up our inaugural Summer Blockbuster series, Amber leads us on a mission to Pandora with Avatar (2009). Rather than exploration of the culture of the indigenous Na’vi population (or maybe in addition to), we’ll examine some of the philosophical underpinnings of the franchise and discuss the book that completely changed Amber's intellectual trajectory.

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Links

• “Avatar” Advertising Invades “Bones” Episode “The Gamer in the Grease” (Wall Street Journal)

• Do You Speak Na'vi? Giving Voice To 'Avatar' Aliens (NPR)

• An interview with Paul Frommer, Alien Language Creator for Avatar (Unidentified Sound Object)

• Some highlights of Na’vi (University of Pennsylvania Language Log)

• Avatar: an all-purpose allegory (Foreign Policy)

• Avatar (Rotten Tomatoes)

• Avatar: A Marxist Saga on the Far Distant Planet (Communication, Capitalism, and Critique)

• Orientalism (via Bookshop.org)

• An Introduction to Edward Said, Orientalism, and Postcolonial Literary Studies (Amardeep Singh)

• Orientalism and power: When will we stop stereotyping people? (BBC Ideas, via YouTube)

• Watching Avatar through a Postcolonial and Orientalist Lens (via Academia.edu)

• Jairo Funez on Twitter

• Edward Said - Framed: The Politics of Stereotypes in News (Al Jazeera English, via YouTube)

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Summer Blockbusters: Apocalypto - Ep 199

Amber guides Anna through the jungle of the 2006 film Apocalypto...but hopefully a little less racistly than director Mel Gibson did! We’ll talk about human sacrifice, what was (and was not) going on in Maya culture in the 15th century CE, and the movie’s ending that couldn’t be more on the nose if it went “boop!”

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Links

• The Story of Civilization (via Wikipedia)

• With help from a friend, Mel cut to the chase (The Washington Post)

• Mel Gibson criticizes Iraq war at film fest (Today)

• Is Apocalypto Pornography? (Archaeology)

• Relativism, Revisionism, Aboriginalism, and Emic/Etic Truth: The Case Study of Apocalypto (The Ethics of Anthropology and Amerindian Research: Reporting on Environmental Degradation and Warfare)

• The perduring Maya: new archaeology on early Colonial transitions (Antiquity, via ResearchGate)

• Maya Resistance to Colonial Rule in Everyday Life (The Latin American Anthropological Review)

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Summer Blockbusters: The Dig - Ep 198

Welcome to a month of Summer Blockbusters, where we talk about the archaeology in movies that aren't Indiana Jones! This week, it's the 2021 film The Dig, starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan. We'll talk a bit about the film, but mostly about the real site portrayed in it--the Anglo Saxon burial at Sutton Hoo. This site was key to rewriting the understanding of post-Roman Britain, and was especially meaningful as a symbol of English national identity during WWII.

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Links

• Here’s the True Tale Behind Netflix’s Buzzy New Carey Mulligan Archaeology Drama, ‘The Dig (Artnet)

• The True History Behind Netflix’s ‘The Dig’ and Sutton Hoo (Smithsonian)

• The Dig: Who was Sutton Hoo archaeologist Basil Brown? (BBC)

• The Dig (CautionSpoilers.com)

• What Netflix ‘The Dig’ Gets Right And ‘Slanderously’ Wrong About The Sutton Hoo Story (Forbes)

• The Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo (British Museum)

• The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Volume 1: Excavations, Background, the Ship, Dating and Inventory (via WorldCat)

• Whetstone or Sceptre? (medieval.eu)

• An Introduction to Early Medieval England (C.410–1066) (English Heritage)

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Sea Peoples - Ep 197

“The Sea Peoples” is a term that refers to a seafaring culture of unclear origin that bopped around the eastern Mediterranean and adjoining areas around 1200-900 BCE. There are ancient Egyptian murals and reliefs that depict battles against these unnamed adversaries, but no definitive labels or helpful texts. So who were the Sea Peoples? We’ll discuss some theories, and probably not reach any conclusions apart from “wow people really care a lot about this, huh?”

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Links

• Sea Peoples (World History Encyclopedia)

• Ask a Near Eastern Professional: Who are the Sea Peoples and what role did they play in the devastation of civilizations that occurred shortly after 1200 BCE? (Ancient Near East Today)

• Gaston Maspero and the Sea Peoples (SciHi)

• Rapid Change of Climate Did Not Cause the Fall of the Akkadian Empire (Ancient Near East Today)

• Who Were the Sea People? (ThoughtCo)

• Philistine (people) (Encyclopedia Britannica)

• Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines (Science Advances)

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The Dirt Gets Wrecked - Ep 196

Y'all, it has been a TOUGH WEEK. You can tell because Anna somehow manages to get the episode intro WRONG after doing it correctly nearly 200 times. But we're just gonna keep swimming! We couldn’t do a month-at-sea theme without talking about shipwrecks. And it’s not just pirate ships and the Titanic, either. We’ll discuss all kinds of underwater assemblages and the ways in which shipwreck archaeology helps us understand travel, life, commerce, connectivity, and more.

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Links

• Dokos shipwreck (Wikipedia)

• Oldest Intact Shipwreck Discovered in the Black Sea (Smithsonian Magazine)

• Ancient Shipwreck (Archaeology)

• The Oldest Intact Shipwreck “Odysseus” was an Ancient Greek Vessel (Greek Reporter)

• Stamnos - The Siren Vase (British Museum)

• How the world's deepest shipwreck was found (BBC Future)

• Made in China (National Geographic)

• The Belitung Shipwreck (SEAArch)

• Silk Roads Programme (UNESCO)

• NOAA, partners discover wreck of 207-year-old whaling ship (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

• The Science of Shipwrecks (North Carolina Sea Grant)

• Episode 86 - Check Yourself Before You Shipwreck Yourself (The Dirt)

• How scientists keep ancient shipwrecks from crumbling into dust (Popular Science)

• Giant freeze dryer to preserve famous shipwreck (The History Blog)

• Sustainable Nanotechnologies for Curative and Preventive Wood Deacidification Treatments: An Eco-Friendly and Innovative Approach (Nanomaterials)

• The Salvage (Vasa Museet)

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