Name: Russell Palmer
Position: Research Fellow
Email: russell.palmer@mail.shufe.edu.cn
Office No.: Room 515, Red Tile Building
Research/Teaching Interests: historical archaeology, material culture history, book history (particularly the materiality of the book), institutional histories, British colonialism, Europe, Mediterranean and North America (c. 1600–1900)

Educational background
PhD in Archaeology, Ghent University (2017)
MA in Archaeology, University of Manchester (2002)
BA (Hons) in Archaeology, University of Manchester (2001)

Publications
Books
Captives, Colonists and Craftspeople: Material Culture and Institutional Power in Malta, 1600–1900 (New York: Berghahn, 2020).

Edited works
with McAtackney, Laura. 2016. Colonial Institutions: Uses, Subversions, and Material Afterlives. Special Issue of International Journal of Historical Archaeology20.3. (AHCI)

Journal Publications
“Post-medieval Maltese earthenware and its makers: unearthing a forgotten industry,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology24 (2020): 22–455. (AHCI)
with Raneri, Simon, Mazzo, Paolo, Vella, Nicholas C., Barone, Germana and De Clercq, Wim. 2018. “Neighbourly ties: Characterizing local and Sicilian pottery in post-medieval Malta,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports19 (2018): 575–587.
“Graffiti as Historical Data: The British Army and the Inquisitor’s Palace (Birgu) in the early nineteenth century,” Melita Historica17.2 (2018): 37–49.
“Contextualizing the Cruel Sufferings of Katharine Evans and Sarah Cheevers: a historical materialist perspective,” ANQ-A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews31.1 (2018): 11–17. (AHCI)
“A Functional Analysis of Glass from an Officers’ Mess, Malta,” Malta Archaeological Review11(2012–2013, pub. Jan. 2017): 41–50.
with McAtackney, Laura. “Colonial Institutions: Uses, Subversions, and Material Afterlives,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology20.3 (2016): 471–76. (AHCI)
“Religious Colonialism in Early Modern Malta: Inquisitorial Imprisonment and Inmate Graffiti,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology20.3 (2016): 548–561. (AHCI)
“Maltese Ceramics and Imperial Foodways: An Exploration of Nineteenth-century Red Wares,” European Journal of Archaeology 17.4 (2014): 678–701. (AHCI)
“Coleridge, Material Culture, and Malta,” ANQ-A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews27.1 (2014): 5–12. (AHCI)

Awards
Research Society for American Periodicals Early Career Research Grant (2020)

Projects
American Pocket Almanacs, 1750–1830: By the 1770s, annually-published pocket almanacs had become common place items. Their often colourful bindings mark them as bibliographically distinct from their larger sheet almanac cousins, as does their diminutive size, which makes them better suited to accompanying their owner in daily life. By integrating the requirements of an almanac, a diary, and a notebook, the pocket almanac became a near-constant companion to their owner and represents a forgotten part of the everyday material and print cultures of late colonial and early Republic America. Building on research carried out during a Barra Foundation International Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia (2018) and an Early Career Research Grant from the Research Society for American Periodicals (2020), this project aims to recover the cultural and economic significance of pocket almanacs through an investigation of their production, marketing, and consumption. Drawing on Jerome McGann’s (1991) notion of textual semiotics, the investigation encompasses the printed contents and the material packaging (typography, decorated paper covers), situating pocket almanacs as products printed, packaged and marketed with specific consumer groups in mind and as part of a nascent American consumer culture.