In memoriam: Michael Rowland, CCHS
In memory of Professor Michael Rowlands by Kristian Kristiansen, CCHS, University of Gothenburg.
Professor Michael Rowlands, UCL, died on the 19th of July 2025 after a rapid, incurable cancer. With his death an intellectual and human giant left us, and I lost a lifelong friend and inspiration. Mike and I contributed to several joint undertakings, one of them the formation of the European Association of Archaeologist (EAA) and our still running editorship of the Cambridge Element Series on Critical Heritage Studies.
In 2011 Mike became visiting professor at CHS, Critical Heritage Studies in Gothenburg. It would later transform into CCHS Centre for Critical Heritage Studies - formal collaboration between University of Gothenburg and UCL (2016-2022). The project initiated a period of increasingly closer collaboration between our departments that has lasted to this day.
As a recognition of Mike’s significant contribution to the development and international expansion of critical heritage research at University of Gothenburg he received an honorary doctorate title in 2014.
We started a new Element series at Cambridge University press with Mike and I as senior editors, as an important part of our work within the CCHS. To date, the series has produced around 20 books.
As much as I mourn Mike’s too early death, I remain deeply grateful for the lifelong inspiration I received from our friendship. What more can you ask for when science and friendship merge into a lifelong series of intellectual interactions and collaborations?
By Kristian Kristiansen, professor of archaeology, Department of Historical studies and former Director of the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, University of Gothenburg.
- A longer text is published in TEA The newsletter of EAA members for EAA members Issue 86 – Autumn 2025, see attached file below.
