Sites

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Harrison ◽  
John Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Spatial Continuity ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Contemporary Past

Sites are the staple of archaeological investigation, forming the basis of many an excavation or survey project, often within a wider landscape study where it is the relationships between sites that can matter more. Think of any archaeological project or great excavation of the nineteenth or twentieth century, and you have your archaeological site, defined by convention as incorporating either settlement or industrial, religious, or military remains. These sites are often the subject of either a lengthy process of investigation and then post-excavation analysis leading to publication of results, or sometimes a short Weld evaluation prior to their destruction through development or preservation in situ. Their initial discovery may be newsworthy, and perhaps the result of some significant new development, a new landmark in the making. As we have seen, by convention archaeologists and curators generally treat those places and objects from the past as precious, valued resources for their very historicity and their cultural value, and often (correctly) seek their protection from destructive forces of the present and future. But our view is slightly different. We do not recognize the distinction between that which is old/ancient and matters, and that which is new and does not. Rather we recognize all material culture, the artefacts and sites and the wider landscape, as being suitable for archaeological inquiry and potentially holding value for this reason: not just the objects of the deeper past threatened with destruction, but also the contemporary office building that now occupies the site. Archaeology of the contemporary past even gives recognition to the ‘site to be’, the places planned for the future, a site that exists only on a planning board or an architect’s computer, or as a model, or even in the mind. With the archaeology of the contemporary past, the past, present, and future are woven together in a way that gives the subject complexity, introduces new and unforeseen challenges and difficulties, and equally gives it a heightened sense of social relevance and meaning. That said, for archaeology of the contemporary past, many of the same rules apply as for earlier periods, although, as we have seen, the sheer numbers of modern sites, and the spatial continuity of human activity and our perception and experience of it, do complicate things somewhat.

scholarly journals Scarred souls, weary warriors, and military intervention: the emergence of the subject in the just war writings of Jean Bethke Elshtain

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LEE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
A Site

AbstractOver the past three decades Jean Bethke Elshtain has used her critique and application of just war as a means of engaging with multiple overlapping aspects of identity. Though Elshtain ostensibly writes about war and the justice, or lack of justice, therein, she also uses just war a site of analysis within which different strands of subjectivity are investigated and articulated as part of her broader political theory. This article explores the proposition that Elshtain's most important contribution to the just war tradition is not be found in her provision of codes or her analysis of ad bellum or in bello criteria, conformity to which adjudges war or military intervention to be just or otherwise. Rather, that she enriches just war debate because of the unique and sometimes provocative perspective she brings as political theorist and International Relations scholar who adopts, adapts, and deploys familiar but, for some, uncomfortable discursive artefacts from the history of the Christian West: suffused with her own Christian faith and theology. In so doing she continually reminds us that human lives, with all their attendant political, social, and religious complexities, should be the focus when military force is used, or even proposed, for political ends.

Alessandro Gavazzi: a barnabite friar and the risorgimento (Presidential Address)

1975 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 303-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Basil Hall
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Memento Mori ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Mind

Think nowHistory has many cunning passages, contrived corridorsAnd issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,Guides us by vanities. Think nowShe gives when our attention is distractedAnd what she gives, gives with such supple confusionsThat the giving famishes the craving. Gives too lateWhat’s not believed in, or if still believed,In memory only, reconsidered passion.Historians no doubt have problems enough without setting before themselves that ‘memento mori’ from Eliot, who, though he was describing an old man seeking to understand his own past, leaves nevertheless an echo in the mind disturbing to those who practise the historian’s craft. We assume a confidence which in our heart of hearts we do not always, or should not always, possess. Eliot’s words not only demonstrate the difficulty of one man understanding his own past, but also the historian’s difficulty in understanding those whom they select for questioning from among the vast multitudes of the silent dead, whose deeds, artifacts, ideas, passions, hopes and memories have died with them. We dig into the past, obtain data from archives, brush off the objects found, collect statistics, annotate, arrange, describe, establish a chronology – but do we effectively understand the dead, especially since we are affected by our own beliefs, customs and ideologies? We are, of course, all aware of this: we silently scorn the lecturer who raises these diffident hesitations. For we know our duty: we examine all that we can, we describe our findings, we annotate them, we draw conclusions, or leave our demonstrations to speak for themselves. There are reasons, as I shall hope to show, that these considerations – Eliot’s ominous words and our determination not to be disquieted by them – bear upon the subject of this paper, the almost forgotten Alessandro Gavazzi.

Control of D.C Motor by Computer

2011 ◽  
Vol 403-408 ◽  
pp. 4841-4849
Author(s):  
Rashid Ali Fayadh
Keyword(s):  
Electric Motor ◽  
Technical Development ◽  
Variable Speed ◽  
Control Material ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Specific Speed ◽  
The Mind

D.C motors have special important uses for human that used in many places needs a specific speed or variable speed , so that we need to control this speed for any purpose . Nowadays, the subject of controlling the electric motor and measuring variable is of important subject . Because of scientific and technical development in this field according to difficulty of teaching control material by using computer. In the traditional way the past studies assumed that the best method to understand the concepts of controlling by the computer are by practical exercises in lab and since the lab doesn't contain such ability . This search was represented to do the first step in teaching general principals of controlling by design a window dealing with computer to control the speed of d.c motor . The work on the program helps to use more than one sense which helps to stable the scientific material in the mind of students .

scholarly journals Representation of image of the past in modern Russian historical fiction films

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-26
Author(s):  
Natalia Aleksandrovna Lysova
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Time Accuracy ◽  
Historical Past

This article examines the problems of representation of images of the past in modern historical fiction film and TV series. The relevance of the topic is substantiated by current popularity of this genre of cinematography among audience. The younger generation refers to the historical fiction films as an easy-to-grasp source of information on the historical facts, events, processes and personalities. However, such trend carries a threat of disorientation of mass audience regarding the historical past. The article analyzes the concept of “image”, “artistic image”, “image of the past” and their specific features in the context of the subject of research. Attention is turned to complexity of interrelation of the concept of “historical film” and the introduced into mass media terminology stable lexical construct “pseudohistorical film”. The combination of two approaches became the foundation for this research: culturological approach allowed viewing the degree of representation of images of the mast in historical fiction cinematography; while multifaceted nature of the subject of research and versatility of theoretical and empirical materials suggest referring to interdisciplinary approach. Based on the analysis of modern historical fiction feature films and TV series, the author highlights the criteria that allows assessing the adequacy of image of the past and historical reality depicted on the screen. Such criteria include: veracity of reconstruction of material culture of a specific historical period; events and occurrences, social and historical processes of the reproduced historical time; accuracy of interpretation of mentality of a particular cultural-historical period; original view of the film creators upon history; original understanding and interpretation of historical processes, events and phenomena, etc. Within the framework of this article, emphasis is made on the first two criteria.

scholarly journals From Information to Message: Archaeology and Media in Serbia

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 609
Author(s):  
Jasna Vuković ◽  
Miroslav Vujović
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Real Truth ◽  
Insufficient Knowledge

The paper discusses the image of archaeology and archaeologists created in the public by various media. On the grounds of analysis of the texts in which the subject of archaeology figures in newspapers and on social networks, it is demonstrated that archaeologists are mainly perceived in the public as inert “concealers” of the real truth of the past. The reason behind this is equally in the insufficient knowledge of the media, but as well in the reluctance of professional archaeologists to communicate. The paper offers an outline of long-term strategy to bridge the existing gap and inform the public about the mission and social relevance of the discipline.

Biography of a Hill: Novi Pazar in South-Western Serbia

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Staša Babić
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
World Heritage List ◽  
Physical Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Object Of Study

Archaeology is one of the academic disciplines whose aim is to make sense of the past. Among other things, we organize and classify the material culture of the past into distinctive units according to a number of scholarly established criteria. In the course of the history of the discipline, these criteria have changed, and some of the previously prevailing modes of classification have been severely criticized, above all the concept of archaeological culture (e.g. Jones 1997; Canuto and Yaeger 2000; Isbell 2000; Thomas 2000; Lucy 2005). These reconsiderations have brought forward that the past may not have been as orderly organized and readily packed into the units we have designed to manipulate and explain its material traces. Consequently, we have started investigating other possible paths of thinking about the lived experiences of the people whose actions we seek to understand (e.g. Díaz-Andreu et al. 2005; Insoll 2007). However, some of the archaeological practices of organizing our subject of study have remained largely unchanged from the very beginnings of our discipline to the present day, such as defining one of the very basic units of observation—an archaeological site. The archaeological process may be said to begin ‘at the trowel’s edge’ (Hodder 1999, 92ff.), by distinguishing the features in the soil indicative of past human activities and demarcating their spatial limits. This basic anchoring in the spatial dimension, regardless of subsequent procedures, that may vary significantly depending upon the theoretical and methodological inclinations of the researcher(s) in question (Jones 2002; Lucas 2001; 2012), renders the past tangible and manageable, transforming a patch of land into an object of study, further scrutinized according to a set of rules laid down by archaeologists. Once investigated in their physical form in the field, the sites are converted into a set of information, analysed, commented upon and valorized both by archaeologists and the general public. In the process, some are judged to be more important than the others and lists of particularly valuable sites are compiled, such as the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Theory and Politics

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Harrison ◽  
John Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Contemporary Archaeology ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Heritage Industry ◽  
Contemporary Past

If we are to undertake an archaeology of the contemporary past, we need Wrst to be able to characterize it—to understand both those quotidian aspects of contemporary life as well as what makes this period distinct from other periods that preceded it. Although we have already suggested in Chapter 1 that the archaeology of the contemporary past should not be considered a period study, it is nonetheless important to understand both the continuities and discontinuities in contemporary life that might form the object of an archaeology of the present. This chapter will introduce a theoretical framework on which to build an archaeology of the contemporary past through a consideration of what various cultural theorists have written about the nature of the subject and its relevance to the study of contemporary places and material culture. There is a large literature on the nature of modernity and late modernity (a term we use to describe both ‘postmodernity’ and ‘supermodernity’ in a historical sense, see further discussion below), from which we have drawn a selection that we consider helpful in understanding the topic of contemporary archaeology, and that provides a theoretical background to the work of archaeologists who study the contemporary past. This chapter will also explore the ways in which archaeology as a form of documentation becomes a political and social intervention when its gaze is turned towards the contemporary past. We argue that this political dimension is one of the defining characteristics of the archaeology of the contemporary past. Although we noted in Chapter 1 that this is not a book about heritage, the issue of heritage is in many ways integral to understanding the role of contemporary archaeology, as it relates to the ways in which we engage with, and understand, the past in the present. Indeed, in this chapter we argue that the rise of a heritage industry is itself a tangible artefact of the same impulse that led to the rise of contemporary archaeology as a distinct Weld of study (see also Ferguson, Harrison, and Weinbren 2010). At the same time, understanding these impulses that have given rise to heritage and the archaeology of the recent past helps us to understand what makes the period unique, and lays the foundation for a thematic framework for undertaking an archaeology of the contemporary past.

The next level of play

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-546
Author(s):  
Jean-François Gauvin
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
The Past ◽  
Manual Skills ◽  
Culture Of Science ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Past 300 Years

Abstract Although teaching science is considered a serious business, toys and sometimes entertaining spectacles have been at the very heart of such an endeavour over the past 300 years. Using, among other things, the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments as a material historical source, this article describes how the ‘magical’ effects of a Cartesian Devil or a solar microscope, the deafening explosion of a volcano, the building (and breaking) of a measuring apparatus, and the playing with mathematical and quantum toys diligently imparted vast areas of scientific knowledge to Harvard University students between 1730 and 1970. Playing with science – and with scientific instruments – is examined here as a valued pedagogical strategy deployed by generations of teachers, who saw in the material culture of science a renewable resource for training the mind and acquiring manual skills. It also allows us to study an important collection of objects from an unusual perspective.

scholarly journals Current Research: Toward a Collaborative Development of a Truly Comprehensive Multi-State Material Culture Database

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan P. McKinnon
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Landscape Scale ◽  
Spatial Analyses ◽  
Site Location ◽  
Burial Site ◽  
The Past ◽  
Microsoft Access ◽  
A Site ◽  
Private Collections

Throughout the past several years, I have been compiling, with the help of several Caddo researchers, a comprehensive multi-state database primarily composed of whole Caddo vessels from published excavations, private collections, and archaeological reports. At present, the database contains over 13,000 vessel entries from over 500 sites ranging from a single vessel recorded at a site to hundreds. Over the years, the database has evolved to contain, where applicable, attribute fields on type, variety, motif designs (largely using the Glossary of Motifs published in the Spiro shell engravings, collegiate assignment, form, temper, decorative method (incised, brushed, etc.), context (burial #, site #, intra site location), pigment, archaeological phase, collector, repository, associated photographs, and reference citations. The database is managed using Microsoft Access where data are imported into ESRI ArcGIS and spatial analyses can be conducted. This is a continual, and perhaps never-ending, work in progress where attribute fields are added, types are vetted, and new sites are included. In some cases, “Caddo-like” vessels from sites outside the Caddo Archaeological Area, or Caddo Homeland, are included in order to evaluate social interaction and exchange of ideas. Through this process, some initial insights into landscape scale social interactions and interregional relationships using this growing comprehensive database have been explored.

Documentary Archaeology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Beaudry
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Past ◽  
Below Ground ◽  
Lines Of Evidence

Documentary archaeology involves a process that is begun afresh for each archaeological site or research project: that of ‘constructing the archive’ through integrating differing lines of evidence. For historical archaeologists, the archive includes written records, oral traditions, and material culture; often elements of the archive provide overlapping, conflicting, or entirely different insights into the past, requiring resolution and integration because of differences in scale, completeness, representativeness, temporal resolution, and lack of correspondence. This chapter explores how historical archaeologists use and analyse textual sources in writing archaeological narratives and considers the intertextuality of sources by analysing contrasting examples of success and of failure in attempts to establish a dialogue between above-ground and below-ground evidence.

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