Interrogates the boundaries between amateur and professional archaeology

Until the mid-twentieth century, professional archaeologists readily worked alongside amateur or avocational archaeologists—those who did not have an academic, professional, or governmental affiliation. However, the gulf between professionals and amateurs has grown in recent decades, and amateurs are now often viewed more warily and are even conflated with looters. Amateurs in North American Archaeology traces the trajectory of this change, noting its implications for archaeological studies across the continent.

The volume’s contributors discuss time periods, noteworthy individuals, archaeological societies, and geographical regions, offering a wide-ranging perspective on a topic that is frequently overlooked. Though the book evaluates the past, it also makes crucial claims for the future of effective, inclusive archaeological study, emphasizing the importance of diverse perspectives and alternate interpretations.

Modern Chinese theatre once entailed a variety of forms, but now it primarily refers to spoken drama, or huaju. Backstaging Modern Chinese Theatre looks beyond scripts to examine  visuality, acoustics, and performance between the two World Wars, the period when huaju gained canonical status. The backstage in this study expands from being a physical place offstage to a culturally and historically constructed social network that encompasses theatre networks, academies, and government institutions—as well as the collective work of dramatists, amateurs, and cultural entrepreneurs. Early huaju was not a mere imitation of Western realist theatre, as it is commonly understood, but a creative synthesis of Chinese and Western aesthetics. Charting huaju’s evolution from American colleges to China’s coastal cities and then to its rural hinterland, Man He demonstrates how the formation of modern Chinese theatre challenges dominant understandings of modernism and brings China to the center of discussions on transnational modernities and world theatres.