Stephen Andrew Chrisomalis, Ph.D. |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Anthropology, McGill University Leacock Building, Rm. 717 855 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T7 |
| E-mail: | |
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| Research Interests | cross-cultural comparison; numerals and numeration; archaeology of ancient science, mathematics, and technology; ancient eastern Mediterranean cultural contact; writing systems and literacy; cognitive anthropology; ethnomathematics; history of anthropology and archaeology |
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| Professional Appointments |
Faculty Lecturer Department of Anthropology McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) Aug. 2006 - Postdoctoral Fellow / Lecturer Department of Anthropology University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) Sept. 2003 - Aug. 2006 Associate Scholar Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) Sept. 2004 - Aug. 2006 |
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| Education | Ph.D, Anthropology McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada August 2003 The Comparative History of Numerical Notation Advisor: Prof. Bruce G. Trigger Dean's Honours List  B.A., Anthropology McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 1996 Major in Anthropology, minor in International Justice and Human Rights; magna cum laude |
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| Fellowships and Awards | SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada May 2004 - April 2006 Linguistic and Graphic Representations of Number Prix d'Excellence de l'ADESAQ Association des doyens des Etudes Supérieures au Québec September 2004 Award for the best 2003 Quebec dissertation in all humanities, social sciences and fine arts disciplines Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research Fellowship McGill University December 2001 Funding awarded for doctoral thesis writing SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada September 1997- August 2001 Funding awarded for doctoral thesis research and writing Max Stern Recruitment Fellowship McGill University September 1996 - August 1997 Entry fellowship awarded to undertake Ph.D. coursework |
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| Publications |
(forthcoming) A Comparative History of Numerical Notation. Cambridge University Press. (forthcoming) The origins and co-evolution of literacy and numeracy. IN The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy, David R. Olson and Nancy Torrance, eds. Cambridge University Press. (forthcoming, 2007) The perils of pseudo-Orwellianism. Accepted for publication in Antiquity. (forthcoming, 2006) Book review of Numbers, Language, and the Human Mind by Heike Wiese. Explorations in Media Ecology 5(4). (forthcoming, 2006) Comparing cultures and comparing processes: diachronic methods in cross-cultural anthropology. Cross-Cultural Research 40(3): 1-28. (2006) Comparative archaeology: an unheralded cross-cultural method. In The Archaeology of Bruce G. Trigger: Theoretical Empiricism, Ronald Williamson and Michael Bisson, eds., pp. 36-51. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. (2004) A cognitive typology for numerical notation. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 14(1): 37-52. (2004) (with Bruce G. Trigger) Reconstructing prehistoric ethnicity: problems and possibilities, in A Passion for the Past: Papers in Honour of James F. Pendergast, James V. Wright and Jean-Luc Pilon, eds., pp. 419-433. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization. (2003) The Egyptian origin of the Greek alphabetic numerals. Antiquity 77(297): 485-496. BBC News report on this paper. (in preparation) Numeration and calculation. IN Handbook of the History of Mathematics, Eleanor Robson, Jacqueline Stedall and Tom Archibald, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (in preparation) Hooke's abaci: European interpretations of East Asian computational technologies, 1600-1750. For submission to Isis. (in preparation) What are the Maya positional numerals? For submission to Latin American Antiquity. |
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| Teaching |
Faculty Lecturer McGill University, Department of Anthropology September 2006 - May 2007 Courses taught: History of Archaeological Theory (honours core program requirement) Evolutionary Anthropology (introductory four-field course) Current Issues in Archaeology (senior honours seminar) Writing and Literacy (senior special topics seminar) Lecturer / Postdoctoral Fellow University of Toronto, Department of Anthropology September 2003 - May 2006 Courses taught: Comparative Civilizations (senior special topics seminar) Introductory Anthropology (intensive introductory course, archaeology and biological anthropology subsections) Advanced Archaeological Theory (senior core theory seminar) Lecturer McGill University, Dept. of Anthropology 2001-2002 Comparative Cultures (intensive introductory cultural anthropology course) Teaching Assistant McGill University, Dept. of Anthropology 2002 Social Evolution; Ancient Egyptian Civilization |
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| Research Employment |
Research Assistant, Prof. Bruce G. Trigger May - August 2003 Reading, note-taking and research of literature in the history and sociology of archaeology for B.G. Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought, 2nd ed. (in preparation). Research Assistant, Prof. Bruce G. Trigger July - August 2002 Proofreading, editing and indexing of manuscript of Artifacts and Ideas (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2003). Research Assistant, Prof. Bruce G. Trigger January - April 2002 Research and data collection on the topic of prehistoric ethnicity and the 'race-language-culture' polemic, leading to the co-authored paper, 'Reconstructing prehistoric ethnicity' (see above) |
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| Scholarly Presentations |
Lecture: "Outnumbered: A Sociocultural Analysis of the Decline and Fall of Numeral Systems" October 2005 University of Toronto, Dept. of Anthropology Colloquium Series Conference Paper: "Evaluating Ancient Numeracy: Social versus Developmental Perspectives on Ancient Mesopotamian Numeration" June 2005 Jean Piaget Society (Vancouver, British Columbia) Conference Paper: "Diachronic Comparison: An Archaeological Method for Cross-Cultural Research" April 2004 Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting (Montreal, Quebec) Lecture: "Rethinking the Typology of Numerical Notation" March 2004 York University Seminar in History and Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematics Education (Toronto, Ontario) Lecture: "Reckoning, Recording, and 'Rithmetic: Rethinking the Spurious Functional Linkage between Numeration and Mathematical Efficiency" January 2004 University of Toronto, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Colloquium Series (Toronto, Ontario) Lecture: "Zero is No Hero: Misgivings on Progressivism in Numeration" February 2002 McGill University Department of Anthropology Speaker Series (Montreal, Quebec) Lecture: "Why 2K? Millennial Observations on Numerical Notation" December 1999 McGill University Archaeology Colloquium (Montreal, Quebec) |
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| Service |
2006-07: Co-chair, McGill Anthropology Visiting Speakers Series Duties include arranging speakers and topics for regular departmental seminar series, advertising and managing speaker visits 2001: Co-presenter, McGill Anthropology Department pro-seminar 'Academic hiring: dossier, letters, c.v.s, interviews, presentations' 1999-2000: Graduate representative, Joint Anthropology and McGill School of the Environment Hiring Committee Duties included reviewing dossiers, attending all meetings and interviews with candidates, liaison with graduate student body, full voting privileges 1999: Graduate representative, McGill Anthropology department Chair Selection Committee Duties included attending all meetings, full voting privileges 1998 –1999: Member, McGill Anthropology department Graduate-Faculty Liaison Committee Duties included attending meetings with faculty, liaison with graduate students over concerns, co-authorship of graduate student report on funding and research opportunities within the department 1997 –1998: Graduate representative, McGill Anthropology Department Graduate Admissions Committee Duties included reviewing applicant dossiers, attending meetings with faculty, full voting privileges |
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| Languages | English (fluent - native speaker) French (high proficiency reading, writing and speaking) German, Latin, Middle Egyptian (read for research purposes) |
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| Other Experience | December 1996 - present: Webmaster, The Phrontistery This web site, which currently receives over 120,000 page views per month, is oriented around the study of English words. as well as academic topics related to my research focus in numeration. |
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| Professional Associations |
American Anthropological Association Society for American Archaeology History of Science Society Archaeological Institute of America Society for Cross-Cultural Research Jean Piaget Society |
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| References | Available upon request | ||||||||||||