lsborck@ou.edu
Copeland Hall Room 207
Dr. Borck is a neurodiverse author and academic. He started in community college as a nontraditional student, received his B.A. from the University of New Mexico and his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology with a concentration in archaeology from the University of Arizona with a minor in remote sensing and spatial analysis. He is a founding member of the Black Trowel Collective, a founding committee member of their microgrants mutual aid project for BIPOC and working class archaeology students, as well as the founding president for The History Underground. He has held academic positions at the University of Arizona, Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands, and at the University of Missouri (in the nuclear research reactor). He has also previously worked in the federal, private, and nonprofit sectors within cultural heritage management and archaeology. Prior to working as an archaeologist and in the academic world he was a proud product of the public school system, was unionized factory labor, managed a large nightclub, was a professional musician, and worked construction and maintenance along with many service jobs.
Borck is currently partnered with the Jicarilla Apache Nation’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office to conduct culturally informed heritage and compliance oriented field research in northern New Mexico. Methodologically, Lewis uses quantitative spatial and network approaches to analyze data from the material histories of past peoples. He then places these results within, and interprets them through, descendant histories and philosophies. His research examines both how Indigenous rebellions, revolutions, and social movements are often missed, even erased, by archaeologists even as they transformed societies in powerful ways. He also focuses on how modern, global politics, economic systems, and ideologies shape how researchers write history, including how researchers recreate the histories and ideals of "Western Civilization" in the deep past. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Park Service, and the Institute for Field Research.
Lewis believes deeply in the power of storytelling, so in addition to his peer reviewed works, he has written for periodicals like the Huffington Post, Yes! Magazine, Sapiens, Culturico, and The Conversation and regularly appears on public lecture series and podcasts. He incorporates these storytelling methods into his classes.
2021: The Past is a Radical Archive: Lessons for a Breaking World. HU Talks 2021
