Daniel Sayers Associate Professor CAS | ANTH | Anthropology
- Additional Positions at 麻豆破解版
- Graduate Director, Anthropology
- Degrees
- PhD, Historical Archaeology, College of William & Mary
MA, Anthropology, Western Michigan University
BA, Philosophy and Anthropology, Western Michigan University - Book Currently Reading
- Goldfarb, 2023 Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of our Planet
- Bio
- Dr. Sayers has some 30 years of field- and U.S.-based experience in archaeology and anthropology that he brings to students in the classroom and in his mentoring. He has worked with many undergraduate and graduate students in helping them gain practical know-how in the profession and related areas, such as filmmaking, historiography, and museum studies. He works to help students understand the ways of anthropological thinking as well as the deep traditions of theory and practice in the profession. Dr. Sayers welcomes working with students with interests in all areas of anthropology, including archaeology, biocultural, linguistic and ethnographic anthropology as well as those in other disciplines outside of Anthropology proper. His interests, research efforts and modes of anthropological engagement with the world are many and varied as you can read about below.
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call 麻豆破解版 Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Teaching
Fall 2024
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ANTH-253 Introduction to Archaeology
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ANTH-496 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: Spatial Anthropology
Spring 2025
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ANTH-253 Introduction to Archaeology
Partnerships & Affiliations
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Member -
US Fish and Wildlife Service
In Partnership -
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
In Partnership -
Great Dismal Swamp Stakeholder Collaborative
Member
Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities
Research Interests
Exploring the following through a Marx- and Sartre-indebted political economic perspective:
- Diasporas and exile
- Alienation, estrangement, and the material world
- Labor, class, and commodities
- Marronage, Maroon communities, and the (so-called) Underground Railroad
- Farmsteads and rural cultures
- Defiance and resistance among the oppressed
- Community power
- Multispecies power and inequalities (via Critical Animal Studies, Animal Liberation and Rights)
- Gender,听family, and kin, especially in rural contexts
- Homed and unhomed (a.k.a., homeless, unhoused)
- Race, racism, and racialization
- Landscapes, esp. edges, margins, and surreptitious spaces/places
Media Appearances
July 2023
Appeared as a collaborative team member in, 鈥淪earching for a Fortress Built by People Who Escaped Slavery鈥, by Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/searching-for-a-fortress-built-by-people-who-escaped-slavery
May 2023
Appeared as Dismal Swamp archaeology expert and commentator on Indigenous American social history in Great Dismal Swamp. In the podcast, Tribal Truths, episode, 鈥淣ansemond Indian Nation: Looking for Ancestors in the Great Dismal Swamp鈥, WVTF, Virginia Public Radio.
https://www.wvtf.org/podcast/tribal-truths/2023-05-25/nansemond-indian-nation-looking-for-ancestors-in-the-great-dismal-swamp
August 2022
American Landscapes w/ host Baratunde Thurston, PBS, Episode 4 on the Mid-Atlantic; appeared as archaeology expert and interviewee with host in the Dismal Swamp.
February 2022
The Underground Railroad, episode 3 in 4-part series on Discovery Science Channel; appeared as archaeology expert in Dismal Swamp segment.
Grants and Sponsored Research
NEH "We the People Collaborative Grant; Canon/National Park Service/American Academy of Arts and Sciences Grant 听 听 听 听
Films/Documentaries
, Smithsonian Channel, 2018.
Selected Publications
Public Works
Sayers, Dan. 2021, . TedEd short film.
Sayers, Daniel O. 2018, , The Doctor T.J Eckleburg Review.
Sayers, Daniel O., 2017, Guest Columnist, "."
Books
*Sayers, Daniel O. (2023).听The Archaeology of the Homed and the Unhomed.听Archaeology of the American Experience, Michael S. Nassaney and Krysta Ryzewski, series eds., University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
听 听 听*听2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award (American Library Association)
Sayers, Daniel O. (2014).听A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. (Second, paperback edition, 2016).
Some Articles and Book Chapters
Sayers, Daniel O. (2023).听Some Thoughts on Landscape鈥檚 Political-Economic Fissures and Understanding Past Social Radicals.听Thematic volume on 鈥淐racks in Capitalism.鈥, Wurst and Dezsi, eds.听International Journal of Historical Archaeology.
Sayers, Daniel O. (2019). The Radical Antebellum Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia, USA: Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and the Power of Underdeveloped Landscapes.听Revue d鈥檋istoire du XIXe si猫cle听58:125-146.
Sayers, Daniel O., and Justin Uehlein (2018). Animal Emancipation and Historical Archaeology: A Pairing Long Overdue. In,听Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice, Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson, eds., pp.117-142, Rowman & Littlefield International, London, UK.
Short Fiction
Daniel Owen Sayers, 2018, ,听Poor Yorick Journal听