Neil Norman, Professsor of Archaeology"
Curriculum Vitae
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Current Position
Fall 2008-present. Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, College of William and MaryResearch Interests
Historical Archaeology, African Diaspora, Complex Societies, Embodiment, Aesthetics of Vodun, Satellite Remote Sensing, Global Information SystemsEducation
2008 Ph.D. University of Virginia, Anthropology (sub-discipline: Archaeology)Dissertation: An Archaeology of West African Atlanticization: Regional Analysis of the Huedan Palace Districts and Countryside (Bénin), 1650-1727. Dissertation Chair: Prof. Adria LaViolette. 2004 M.A. University of Virginia, Anthropology (sub-discipline: Archaeology)
Thesis: The Serpent Ditch and the Rainbow: Landscape Politics in West Africa. Thesis Chair: Prof. Adria LaViolette. 2001 Graduate Certificate in Museum Management, University of South Carolina 2000 Certificat Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), Cours de Civilisation Français de la Sorbonne. 2000 M.A. University of South Carolina, Anthropology (sub-discipline: Historical Archaeology)
Thesis: Medium Vessels: Ethno-archaeological Investigation of Ritual Ceramics in Southern Bénin West Africa. Thesis Chair: Prof. Kenneth Kelly. 1996 B.A. Flagler College, History/Anthropology (with Honors and Distinction)
Fellowships
2007-2008 Residential Dissertation Fellowship. Center for Historical Research, Program in Crossroads of Globalization, Department of History, The Ohio State University 2006-2007 Dissertation Year Fellowship. Graduate School of Arts and Science, University of Virginia 2005-2006 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, Award# P022A050050 2005-2006 Fulbright Student Fellowship (IIE), Bénin West Africa (declined) 2003 & 2004 Summer Language Fellowship, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia ($3,500, both years) 2003-2004 Teaching Technology Support Partner Fellowship. University of Virginia, Department of French Language and Literature 2001-2003 Graduate Teaching Fellowship, DuPont Fellowship. University of Virginia 1998-2000 Graduate Teaching Fellowship, University of South CarolinaGrants
2001-2004, 2007-2008 Conference Travel Support Grant. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia ($250, 2001-2004; $500, 2007, 2008 2007 Conference Travel Support Grant. Department of History, The Ohio State University ($1,050) 2005-2006 (with Hope Norman) Ambassador’s Grant for Culture and Society. Embassy of the Netherlands to Bénin. For the exhibit: The Lost Communities of the Hueda Kingdom ($27,000) 2005 National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant, Grant# 0432893 ($11,987), for field research in Bénin 2004 (with Derek Miller) Graduate-Undergraduate Cooperative Research Grant, Center for Academic Excellence, University of Virginia, for field research in Bénin ($5,000) 2004 Explorers Club Washington Group, Exploration Research Grant, for field research in Bénin ($1,500) 2003 & 2004 Alumni Fund Summer Prefield Grant Award, Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, for field research in Bénin, West Africa ($1,200, both years) 2000 Conference Travel Support Grant. Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina ($300) 1999 Summer Research Grant. Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina ($1,200)Teaching Experience
2009 (Spring) Instructor of Record (scheduled courses): Anthropology of Landscape, Archaeology and the African Diaspora, Graduate Seminar in Archaeological Theory 2008 (Fall) Instructor of Record: African Archaeology, Introduction to Archaeology 2005-2006 Instructor and archaeological director for three archaeological field schools and one museum studies internship (each a month-long) with a total of six Beninese students. All conducted in French with lessons and laboratory teaching modules independently developed. Université d’Abomey Calavi, Bénin West Africa. 2004 (Fall) Teaching assistant for Prof. George Mentore, Introduction to Anthropology. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia. 2003 (Spring) Teaching assistant for Prof. Wende Marshall, The Health of Black Folks. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia 2002 (Fall) Teaching assistant for Prof. Fred Damon, Transforming Everyday Life in America. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia. 2002 (Spring) Teaching assistant for Prof. George Mentore, On Power and the Body. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia. 2001 (Fall) Teaching assistant for Prof. George Mentore, Tournaments and Athletes. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia. 2000 (Spring) Teaching assistant for Prof. Joanna Casey, Primates, People, and Prehistory. Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina. 1999 (Fall) Teaching assistant for Prof. Karl Heider, Understanding Other Cultures. Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina.Honors
2003 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia 2003 Honorary Member, Washington Literary Society and Debating Union, University of Virginia 2000 Honorary Lifetime Member. Conflict of Interest Committee. Yale University. 1996 Academic Achievement Award, Department of Social Sciences; Graduation Honors, Flagler CollegePublications (In Preparation)
On Drinking God and Binding a Polity: Micro-monuments, Ethnic Pluralism, and the Political Landscape of Hueda, 1650-1727. In Ethnic Ambiguity and Archaeology in Africa. K. MacDonald and F. Richard (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sacred Vortices of the African Atlantic: Towards an Archaeology of Huedan (Whydah) Vodun, 1650-1727. International Journal of Historical Archaeology.
Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an Atlantic Countryside and Entrepôt. International Journal of African Historical Studies.
Feasting the People and the Ancestors: Archaeological Views of Parades, Ancestral Pageants, and Socio-Political Process in the Hueda Kingdom, 1650-1727 A.D. Journal of World Prehistory.
Publications (Peer Reviewed)
Under Review Citadels But Not Cities?: West African Urban Forms During the Age of the African Atlantic. In State and Society in the West African Atlantic. Cameron Monroe and Akin Ogundrian (eds.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2007 Historical Archaeology of Landscape in Atlantic Africa. In Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage. Dan Hicks, Laura McAtackney, Graham Fairclough (eds.) Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
2006 Medium Vessels and the Longue Durée. In African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social Issues of the African Diaspora. Jay Haviser and Kevin McDonald (eds.) London: University College of London Press (One World Archaeology Series).
2004 Landscape Politics: The Serpent Ditch and the Rainbow in West Africa. American Anthropologist. 106(1): 98-110.
Publications (Non-Peer Reviewed}
2008 An Archaeology of West African Atlanticization: Regional Analysis of the Huedan Palace Districts and Countryside (Bénin), 1650-1727. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia. Charlottesville, Virginia.
2006 Savi Countryside Archaeological Project. Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter. 39(3): 53.
1999 Archaeological Fieldwork at Savi, Republic of Bénin: the 1999 Season. Nyame Akuma 52: 2-10.
1998 “The Gold is There and Don’t You Forget It!” Historical Research and Archeological Data Recovery at the Sixes Gold Mine (9CK537). R.S. Webb and Associates, Holly Springs, GA.
Journal Advisory Board Service
2008 African Archaeological ReviewWeb Publications (Non-Peer Reviewed)
2007 September 2007 African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter. From West Africa to Barbados: A Rare Pipe from a Plantation Slave Cemetery http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0907/news0907.html
2007 June 2007 African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter. Preliminary Report on Survey, Ethnohistory, and Excavation in the Savi Townscape and Hinterland. http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0607/news0607.html
2006 Designers and webmaster for Ouidah Museum of History website: http://www.museeouidah.org/xweda, and
Lost Communities of the Kingdom of the Hueda website: http://www.museeouidah.org/xweda/accueil.htm
Article Features
2007 Flagler Magazine Spring 2007 Online Publication. Digging Through History: Alum Helping to Write History of Ancient African Society 2004 OSCAR center for scholarship, Creativity, and Research at the University of Virginia. A Graduate/Undergraduate Team Takes on Archaeology in Africa http://oscar.virginia.edu/x5188.xmlReviews
2005 Review of Ayo Salami’s Ifá: a Complete Divination (Lagos: NIDD). In African Book Publishing Record 29(1): 12. 2005 Review of Barth Ekwueme’s The Precambrian Geology and Evolution of the Southeastern Nigerian Basement Complex (Calabar: University of Calabar Press). In African Book Publishing Record 29(2): 324. 2005 Review of Andrew Reid and Paul Lane’s (eds.) African Historical Archaeologies (New York: Kluwer). In American Anthropologist 107(1): 162. 2005 Review of Pamela Stewart and Andrew Strathern’s (eds.) Landscape, Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto). In American Anthropologist 107(1): 168-9.Panel Co-Chair
2009 (Under Review) (with Jeffrey Fleisher) Archaeologies of Anxiety. Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Altanta, GAPapers at Professional Meetings
2009 (Under Review) Feet of Clay: Towards an Archaeology of Elite Anxiety During the Era of Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Altanta, GA 2009 (Forthcoming) From the Shadows of an Atlantic Africa Citadel: Using GIS and Archaeology to Develop a Rural History of the Hueda (Whydah) Kingdom, ca. 1650-1727 AD. Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. New York, NY 2009 (Forthcoming) Tracing Sacred Routes: Cosmograms, Cosmologies, and Material Cross-Roads in the African Atlantic World. Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Toronto, Canada 2008 “A Countryside Divided” and Resolutely So: Regional Political Process and the Final Days of the Hueda Kingdom. Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeologists. Vancouver, Canada. 2007 An Archaeology of Negative Space: Bracing and Bounding the Savi Countryside, Bénin West Africa 1650-1750 AD. Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeologists. Austin, TX. 2007 Worlds Apart/Parts of the World: An Archaeology of West African Countryside Communities During the Emergence of Atlantic Exchange. Annual Meeting of the Society of Historical Archaeology. Williamsburg, VA. 2007 (with Derek Miller) Pipes and Politics: A Regional Study of Locally Produced Tobacco Pipes (17th to 19th Century AD) in Benin, West Africa. Annual Meeting of the Society of Historical Archaeology. Williamsburg, VA. 2006 Enter the Countryside: Regional Dynamics and the Fluoresce of Atlantic Trade in Southern Bénin, West Africa. Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeologists, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 2004 Landscapes of Conflict: Ditches, Discord, and Discourse in the Coastal Forest of Bénin, West Africa. Triennal Symposium on African Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 2003 The Serpent Ditch and the Rainbow: Landscape Politics in West Africa. Annual Meeting of the Africanist Studies Association. Boston, MA. 2002 To Mediate the Spirit: Reconsidering Ceramics, Gender, and Power in Southern Bénin Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. New Orleans, LA. 2002 (with Kenneth Kelly). Medium Vessels: The Implications of African Ritual Ceramics for New World Archaeology. Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ. 2001 (with Kenneth Kelly). Medium Vessels and the Longue Durée. World Archaeological Conference. Inter-Congress on the African Diaspora. Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles. 2000 “Medium Vessels”: An Ethnoarchaeological Investigation of Ritual Pottery in Southern Bénin. Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Québec City, Canada. 2000 Through the Medium of the Vessel: Using Ethnoarchaeology to Distinguish Ritual Characteristics of Fon Pottery in Southern Bénin. Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists, Cambridge University, United Kingdom.Archaeological Experience
2003-Present Director of Savi Countryside Archaeological Project. République du Bénin, West Africa. Personally supervised the survey (3 technicians) and excavation (12 technicians and six students) efforts of international research team and field school. 2002 Site director. Pemba Island Research Project, Tanzania, East Africa . 1999 Site director. Savi Project, République du Bénin, West Africa. 1999 Project archaeologist. Old Salem, Inc. Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 1996-1998 Field director. R.S. Webb and Associates Cultural Recourse Management, Holly Springs, Georgia. 1993-1996 Project archaeologist and assistant-site director. Government House Museum, St. Augustine, Florida.Archival Experience
2000-2001 To Mediate the Spirit: Reconsidering Ceramics, Gender, and Power in Southern Bénin Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. New Orleans, LA.Museum Experience
2005-2006 Co-director and curator for the exhibit: The Lost Communities of the Kingdom of the Hueda, Ouidah Museum of History, Republic of Bénin. Personally supervised the efforts of 7 employees and one intern, who aided in the planning, design, implantation and promotion of the exhibit and website. Funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands, Cotonou, Bénin. 2000-2001 Intern, the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Under the direction of Professor Richard Burger and Lucy Salazar Burger, charged with data base management, artifact curation and analysis, and exhibit production for the exhibit: Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas. 1999-2000 Various curatorial, management, and design projects at the McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina while completing a graduate certificate in Museum Management, University of South Carolina. 1993-1996 Intern and junior-curator, Government House Museum, St. Augustine, Florida. Prepared exhibits, photographed artifacts, conducted archival research and assisted in the curation and conservation of wooden, metal, ceramic, glass and cloth artifacts from colonial-era sites throughout St. Augustine, FL.University Service
2006-2007 Student Representative. Departmental Sub-committee on Diversity for five-year review, University of Virginia 2004-2005 Coordinator, African Lunch Seminar Series, University of Virginia 2004-2005 Student member, University Committee for Instructional Technology, University of Virginia 2004 Co-director, Graduate Teaching Workshop, Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia 2003 Graduate Student Faculty Meeting Representative, Department of Anthropology, University of VirginiaScholarly Lecture
2008 Using Archaeology to Reconsider Urbanism in Atlantic Africa: Town and Country of the Hueda (Whydah) Kingdom c. 1650-1727. Ohio State University, Center for African Studies, Spring Quarter Speakers Series: Focus on Africa at Ohio State University. 2008 Gorging the Ancestors and Starving the Python: The Local Dynamics Behind the Collapse of the Hueda Kingdom, 1727. A lecture presented at the Anthropology/Physical Anthropology Seminar Series. University of California, Santa Cruz. 2007 Ouidah (Hueda) Town and Country: the Urbanization and Ruralization of an Emerging Atlantic Entrepot, 1650-1727. A lecture presented for the Center for Historical Research, The Ohio State University, Program Crossroads of Globalization: ‘Hot Spots’ in the Early Modern World. 2007 The Savi Countryside Project 2004-2005 Season. Archaeological Brown Bag Speakers Series, University of VirginiaGuest Lectures
2008 Revisiting the “Sibling Rivalry”: Intellectual Intersections and the Archaeology and African History. In African History and Methodology, Ohio State University. 2004 Archaeology in the Age of the African Atlantic. In African Archeology, University of Virginia 2003 Archaeology as a Passion (and?) or a Profession. In Perspectives for Anthropology Majors, University of VirginiaPublic Lectures
2007 Envisioning Africa Inside and Outside the Academy. Keynote Address at the Spring Convocation, Organization of African Students, University of Virginia. 2006 The Communities of Savi: Past, Present, and Future. Ouidah Museum of History 2006 Archaeological Resources as Sustainable Resources. Embassy of the Netherlands to Bénin 2006 Communautés Perdues des Xwéda. Savi, République du BéninComputer Knowledge
Language Skills
French Reading, Writing, and Speaking Proficiency Fongbe Working Knowledge Spanish Working KnowledgeProfessional Memberships and Affiliations
l’Association Ouest Africaine d’ArchéologieThe American Anthropological Association
The African Studies Association
The American Historical Association
The Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists
The Society for Historical Archaeology
The Society of Africanist Archaeologists
The Society of American Archaeology
The Southeastern Archaeological Conference
References
| Prof. Adria LaViolette (dissertation chair)
University of Virginia Department of Anthropology P.O. Box 400120 -Brooks Hall Charlottesville, VA 22904 (434) 982-2631 ajl4h@virginia.edu |
Prof. Jeffery Hantman
University of Virginia Department of Anthropology P.O. Box 400120 -Brooks Hall Charlottesville, VA 22904 (434) 924-3953 jlh3x@virginia.edu |
| Prof. Joseph Miller
University of Virginia Corcoran Department of History University of Virginia PO Box 400180 - Randall Hall Charlottesville, VA 22904 (434) 924-6395 jcm7a@virginia.edu |
Prof. Stephen Plog |