Welcome to Scholarly Roadkill

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Mitch’s blog, Scholarly Roadkill, is part of a consulting business, Scholarly Roadside Service, detailed on this website.The blog will cover topics I'm interested in, not only scholarly publishing, but archaeology, dance, the university, writing, scholarly life, and the absurdity of the 21st century universe.  We have no facility to sign up followers, but if you click Like on our Facebook page, you’ll get announcements of new posts. Guest blogs welcomed, just let me know what you want to write about. 

The Next Luddite Revolution

Thursday, April 23, 2026

The Luddites were an early 19th century movement protesting new technologies that came along with the Industrial Revolution. They complained that some of these changes ruined their jobs, their lives, their world. Followers of the mythical Ned Ludd, they were ruthlessly put down by police at the behest of the factory owners interested in industrial efficiency. 

To be called a Luddite has been an insult for quite a while now. Us old people who refuse or are unable to keep up on weekly changes in computer technology, online purchasing, or instantaneous financial transactions are the Luddite class. I know my…

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Tradition!

Sunday, October 05, 2025

It was the rattle that I first heard over the honking of the flocks of geese on the beach.  A steady shaking, not a snake, but rhythmic, persistent, consistent. It came from down the beach somewhere, possibly where a glop of distant figures were sitting on a log. The dog and I were heading that way anyway. As we got closer, we could disentangle the huddle of bodies to three or four—two older men, a woman, a teenage boy. And the rattling then doubled, as another figure, 100 yards out on the beach standing over a large pool of seawater…

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The Sorting

Friday, August 01, 2025

The curve around Canyon Crest Road was as usual. Lined with valley oaks that shed their yellowing leaves year round, they hide the deep canyon that would make a wide turn tragic. On the opposing slope of  the canyon lay the huge nexus of engineers and scientists buzzing around their nest at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It would be hard to reconstruct that January night if you weren’t there. A torrid wind and too warm temperatures for a bone dry winter day. A spark, flames, fire, alarms. Calls for evacuation. Randy hustling an aged and somewhat confused Bill into his car…

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Brian Fagan, the Instructor

Wednesday, July 09, 2025

The news of Brian Fagan’s passing last week led me to reflect on the long history that he and I had together. Brian had a huge impact on my professional life as a publisher. He was the main archaeological consultant for AltaMira Press for a decade, was author of the first book we published there in 1995, and used his considerable sway to convince archaeologists to work with us. It was his vision to focus our publications program on practical books for CRM professionals that led to much of this success. When we launched Left Coast Press, he dropped his…

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The Last National Guard Invasion

Thursday, June 12, 2025

It wasn’t the rows of Willys jeep, nor the khaki uniforms or helmets, the bandoliers of ammunition, so much. It was the machine guns mounted on the backs of the jeeps with gunners at the ready.

Not many American civilians have been in situations where the National Guard patrolled the streets of their town. LBJ mobilizing the Guard for Montgomery is the one that has made the news this week. The Rodney King riots in LA was another. But I was a student in Santa Barbara, living in the neighboring student community Isla Vista with a lot of other mostly…

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Efficient Apologetics

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

It would be unfair to use the stereotype of Germans as orderly and efficient to describe them. Anyone who has had to transfer planes at Frankfurt Airport will know that the universal is not universal. Yet we discovered in Germany what we might call an orderly fervor for apologizing for what their ancestors have done.

Germany has always had a sinister sound to me. Growing up in a suburban LA Jewish neighborhood a decade after the end of the war, we were reminded of Germany’s actions a decade before. My parents, who fought in and worked the home front during…

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Entertainment or erasure

Friday, August 16, 2024

Poland had approximately 3 million Jews a century ago. Now there are less than 5,000. For those on all parts of the political spectrum who volley the term “genocide” about so carelessly, there is a lesson here on what the term actually means.  My visit to Poland with Jubilee American Dance Theatre had an unexpected confrontation with my Jewish identity as well my world of dance.

I don’t consider myself particularly interested in Jewish issues. I grew up in a suburban Jewish family in Los Angeles and received a moderate religious education after school instead of being on…

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Dancing Around Auschwitz

Thursday, August 08, 2024

It was Sunday, the last day of the Jubilee Polish dance tour. We were to perform in Oswiecim. The town used to go under a different name, Auschwitz. 

We tried to arrange a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp before we left the US. Our guide in Bielsko-Biala responded to our email a few days later—no tour group slots were available for the one day that we were free to go. But we could go individually and tour the camp on our own. When we arrived, I arranged for a group to go on Monday, ordered taxis through the hotel,…

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Who is Alice?

Friday, June 28, 2024

The question of the day was supposed to be archaeological, not literary. Who built Stonehenge, not who is Alice?

A Stonehenge exhibit at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria seemed a good excuse for a day trip on one of our last few days on Vancouver Island before returning to the Bay Area. The exhibit had been organized by some archaeologists in London, a couple of whom I had published in a previous life, who had been excavating at Stonehenge in the past few years. So we took the two hour drive through Ladysmith, Duncan, and over the…

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