Daniel Sayers Associate Professor CAS | ANTH | Anthropology
- Additional Positions at AU
- 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 is a historical archaeologist who has worked across the United States on academic and cultural resource management projects 69传媒 the past 30 years. He has written on a variety of topics in areas of theory, practice, and issues in the profession today as can be found in his two academic books and his many journal articles and edited volume chapters. As a public-facing researcher, Dr. Sayers has appeared on a whole hatful of television and streaming shows, documentary films, podcasts, radio programs, and other media while also presenting to a variety of public audiences several times per year.
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call AU 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 69传媒 History and Culture
In Partnership -
Great Dismal Swamp Stakeholder Collaborative
Member
Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities
Research Interests
Exploring the following through a 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
- Gender,听family, and kin
- Homed and unhomed (a.k.a., homeless, unhoused)
- Race, racism, and racialization
Media Appearances
Recent 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 69传媒 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
69传媒 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/69传媒 Academy of Arts and Sciences Grant 听 听 听 听
Films/Documentaries
, Smithsonian Channel, 2018.
Selected Publications
Recent Public Works
Sayers, Dan. 2021, . TedEd short film.
Sayers, Daniel O. 2018, , The Doctor T.J Eckleburg Review.
Sayers, Daniel O., 2017, Guest Columnist, "."
Recent Books
*Sayers, Daniel O. (2023).听The Archaeology of the Homed and the Unhomed.听Archaeology of the 69传媒 Experience, Michael S. Nassaney and Krysta Ryzewski, series eds., University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
听 听 听*听2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award (69传媒 Library Association)
Sayers, Daniel O. (2014).听A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archeology of Maroons, Indigenous 69传媒s, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. (Second, paperback edition, 2016).
Recent 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 69传媒s, 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