Denmark

Saw three art exhibitions Sunday with the ladies of my family. The Culture House, Kulturhuset, in central Stockholm shows US photographer Sally Mann's work, mainly selected from three collections: 1980s pictures of her kids (very controversial in the US back then because of child nudity, an issue few Swedes are able to get worked up about), 1990s landscapes from the southern US, and huge recent portraits of her grown-up kids where any documentary ambition is completely abandoned for out-of-focus fogginess. Absolutely wonderful stuff, and no photoshoppery, only analog chemical photography,…

A recurring theme in my blogging of the past year (e.g. here: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4) has been that a degree in Scandinavian archaeology (BA, MA or PhD) is almost entirely useless from a career perspective. The reason is that our labour market is over-populated at all levels, from the lowly shovel-wielder to the august professor. In my past posts, I've documented this in various ways. Since getting my degree in 2003, I've applied for twelve academic jobs in Scandinavia, all requiring a PhD in archaeology. A number of temporary jobs have also been given discreetely to people already within departments…