Happy New Year! News! Conferences!

Happy new year, everybody! I hope you had a good time during the holidays.

Hereabouts cookies and Stollen and lots of lovely food have been consumed. Outside it has finally gotten wintery, with a bit of snow lying around, and even enough for a snowman and a snowball-fight with friends at one point. We hung out with friends and family, having a good time, relaxing, and playing a few games. And three days ago, I managed to catch the Monster Cold of Doom which knocked me out of action for a day and a half, and led to massive consumption of hot lemon with ginger. (In case you never tried that, it's a lovely winter drink, not only when you have a cold. Peel and cut up fresh ginger, pour boiling water over it, let sit for a while to brew, until the liquid is not too hot to drink anymore. Then add honey and lemon juice to taste - I use about a quarter lemon's worth per cup.)

Nevertheless, meanwhile, progress on the book has been made, and things are very close to a final now. Which is very, very good, since we hope to have it out very soon (which implies an utterly strict and very tight deadline). I'm sadly behind on a number of other things, though!

The new year, as was to be expected, is also bringing new conferences - and here are two calls for papers for you:

The Textielcommissie of the Netherlands is hosting a conference about bio-design in textiles on May 18.

The next CfP is from the EAA - Oral papers and posters are invited for the session ‘Quantitative and qualitative approaches to prehistoric warfare’ to be held at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Glasgow, 2-5 September 2015.

There will also be a textile session at the EAA, where the organisers would like to hear from people who have experience of teaching archaeological textiles at university level, particularly in relation to the following questions:

• What do you want the next generation to know about archaeological textiles (both general archaeologists, and people who want to specialise in textiles)?

• What should be included in primarily textile-focused courses? Topics, good case studies, tips and tricks, practical ideas, theory...

• How can archaeological textiles be incorporated into other courses?

• How does your textile teaching fit into the goals of your university/department/ course structure/teaching style/research focus/curriculum/etc?

The goal of the session are to exchange best practice, build a databank of teaching materials for textiles courses, and possibly develop strategies for raising the profile of textile studies. The session is linked to the conservation excursion (http://eaaglasgow2015.com/excursion/science-and-conservation/). 

The deadline for submission of abstracts for the EAA is 16 February 2015 as well. Submit your paper here: http://eaaglasgow2015.com/call-for-papers/.