Daniel Sayers Associate Professor CAS | ANTH | Anthropology
- Additional Positions at ǻ
- 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 during 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 ǻ 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 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,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, “Searching for a Fortress Built by People Who Escaped Slavery”, 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, “Nansemond Indian Nation: Looking for Ancestors in the Great Dismal Swamp”, 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
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).The Archaeology of the Homed and the Unhomed.Archaeology of the American Experience, Michael S. Nassaney and Krysta Ryzewski, series eds., University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
*2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award (American Library Association)
Sayers, Daniel O. (2014).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).
Recent Articles and Book Chapters
Sayers, Daniel O. (2023).Some Thoughts on Landscape’s Political-Economic Fissures and Understanding Past Social Radicals.Thematic volume on “Cracks in Capitalism.”, Wurst and Dezsi, eds.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.Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle58:125-146.
Sayers, Daniel O., and Justin Uehlein (2018). Animal Emancipation and Historical Archaeology: A Pairing Long Overdue. In,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, ,Poor Yorick Journal