Beyond the Pale: Reading the White Interior in Contemporary Church Refurbishments

Historic churches are an integral feature of British cities, serving not only as places of worship but also as cultural attractions that draw growing numbers of secular visitors. In recent years, several parishes in London have employed celebrated architectural practices to renovate their historic churches with the intention of raising the profile of these buildings. An observable trend in such refurbishments are whitewashed interiors often replacing previously colourful schemes. This paper explores whether a current trend for white interiors suggests new directions in the social and religious cultures of Christianity. For example, do white spaces offer neutral territory for encounters between the sacred and secular, appealing to both worshippers and cultural tourists alike? Do such design schemes reflect a growing move away from collective congregational worship and towards private spirituality and contemplation? The paper presents three recently refurbished historic churches in London as case studies through which to explore these questions: St John-at-Hackney; St Augustine’s, Hammersmith; and St John’s Waterloo. The selected case studies offer examples from both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, suggesting possibilities for reading the trend as an expression of ecumenism. In conclusion, the paper asks whether austere white schemes, such as those presented in the case studies, offer unifying spaces for different worshipping and non-worshipping communities, or whether, as the Catholic priest and architectural theorist Peter Newby suggests, the emptying out of narrative content has stripped them of the ‘full immersive experience’ of Christian worship

Emilio Lussu e Giuseppe Antonio Borgese: rappresentare, analizzare e testimoniare il fascismo

This article presents a comparison between Goliath. The March of the Fascism by Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, a little-known work in the Italian literary context, and Marcia su Roma e dintorni by Emilio Lussu, one of the most famous books of antifascist exile literature. The analysis highlights the similarities between the two works, from the centrality of morality in their critique of fascism to shared stylistic elements, such as the presence of ‘open endings’ and the blending of literature and testimony. Additionally, both works will be studied for their reconstruction of the March on Rome, which in both cases stands in clear opposition to the version presented by Curzio Malaparte in Tecnica del colpo di Stato.In questo articolo si propone un confronto tra Golia. Marcia del fascismo di Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, testo poco noto nell’ambiente letterario italiano, e uno dei libri più celebri della letteratura antifascista dell’esilio: Marcia su Roma e dintorni, di Emilio Lussu. Verranno illustrati i punti di incontro tra le due opere, dalla centralità della morale nell’analisi sul fascismo alla condivisione di alcuni tratti stilistici, come la presenza di ‘finali aperti’ o della commistione tra letteratura e testimonianza, passando per una comune ricostruzione della Marcia su Roma in aperta opposizione rispetto a quella data da Curzio Malaparte in Tecnica del colpo di Stato

Contaminazioni e migrazioni gastronomiche nelle ricette di Jehane Benoît, “grande dame” della cucina canadese

Through the publications of Jehane Benoît, a famous Quebecois cookbook writer in the middle of the last century, we will try to highlight some sociolinguistic aspects of Quebec cuisine. The analysis of the Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne, one of her most important works, as well as of some gastronomic magazines where it is possible to find some of her recipes, have made it possible to ascertain her importance as a mediator and vector of transmission of foreign gastronomic traditions to Quebec housewives in the 1950s.Attraverso le pubblicazioni di Jehane Benoît, celebre autrice quebecchese di ricettari della metà del secolo scorso, cercheremo di mettere in evidenza alcuni aspetti sociolinguistici della cucina quebecchese. L’analisi dell’Encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne, una delle sue opere più importanti, e di alcune riviste gastronomiche a cui ha collaborato, ha permesso di constatarne l’importanza come mediatrice e vettore di trasmissione delle tradizioni gastronomiche sia locali che straniere negli anni ‘50 in Québec, mostrando il ruolo fondamentale della cucina nei processi di integrazione socioculturale e di affermazione identitaria all’interno della società canadese

Arte e Scienza: un argomento molto dibattuto

Nell'ambito del valore olistico dell'opera d'arte, dell'arte e della scienza esistono due diversi modi di leggere la realtà nel campo della tutela e della valorizzazione dei beni culturali e ambientali.Leggere la realtà è sinonimo di lavoro degli storici, che implica la conoscenza, l'interpretazione e la valutazione delle opere d'arte attraverso una valutazione soggettiva e, dei tecnici, attraverso una valuta-zione oggettiva. Unendo le rispettive competenze e, di conseguenza, formando un rapporto interdisciplinare attraverso un'esigenza che deve riflettere l'umiltà e un reciproco bisogno dell'altro (prerogativa necessaria), essi arriveranno, insieme, a una verità scientifica. Questi aspetti sono altrettanto importanti nel-la formazione delle figure professionali relative allo studio e alla ricerca del sistema: manufatto di interesse storico-artistico-conservazione-ambiente-biota.Quanto sopra è strettamente legato al tema dell'attribuzione e dell'autenticazione delle opere d'arte e alle diverse categorie intermedie in cui possono essere classificate le opere autentiche e riprodotte. In queste ultime, che sono frutto delle tecnologie digitali, a partire dalle opere autentiche, è evidente che le questioni estetiche ed etiche sorgono in relazione alle differenze tra opere autentiche e riprodotte.In conclusione, come emblematico esempio storico-tecnico del rapporto tra arte e scienza, si cita il Joumal "Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage”

Ciudades de los Andes: la calle como memoria y como umbral

The key objective of this article is to reflect upon the Rocafuerte Street and the Streets’ network neighboring the old town in Quito, which has been supporting a rich ensemble of social and cultural relationships that are characteristic features of the Andean region. This space is not only a popular trade zone open to negotiation among pairs and not pairs, but also, it constitutes a space of encounters and relationships with its own cultural practices. It is, on the other hand, a border space or threshold between the patrimonialized and the non-patrimonialized part of the old town.El objetivo de este artículo es reflexionar sobre la calle Rocafuerte y una red de calles y plazas adyacentes del centro histórico de Quito, que han servido de soporte a una serie de relacionamientos sociales y culturales característicos de las ciudades andinas.  A más de ser espacios económicos, ha servido de base a la circulación de imágenes y representaciones relacionadas con la fiesta y la ritualidad barroca y con una “espectacularidad popular”. Se trata, de un espacio fronterizo o umbral entre lo patrimonializado y no patrimonializado del centro

Elemental interactions in soil and their impact on soil fertility under the influence of treated wastewater and biosolid

Treated wastewater and biosolids are increasingly used in agriculture as alternatives to well irrigation water and as organic fertilizers. While these practices offer benefits, they also present challenges. Both treated wastewater and biosolids contain essential plant nutrients and heavy metals, which vary based on their source. When applied to soil, these elements interact with each other and with soil properties, potentially affecting soil fertility. To investigate these interactions, a greenhouse pot experiment was conducted using a simulated soil, based on a randomized block design with 12 treatment combinations, four replications, and 48 pots. The goal was to examine how heavy metals, nutrients and soil properties such as pH, clay content, organic matter, and electrical conductivity influence soil fertility when treated with wastewater and biosolids. The interactions were classified into six groups, and their nutrient contributions were analyzed using regression analysis. The study found several significant interactions, with the highest contributions observed in macronutrients, particularly from the interactions between “soil properties x macronutrients” and “micronutrients x macronutrients.” Significant contributions included nitrate (1016.05 mg/kg), potassium (783.07 mg/kg), calcium (4014.52 mg/kg), magnesium (475.46 mg/kg), and micronutrients like boron (2.02 mg/kg), zinc (11.98 mg/kg), copper (16.78 mg/kg), and iron (29.76 mg/kg).  The present study offers new insights into how elemental interactions affect soil fertility, under the influence of treated wastewater and biosolids. It highlights the importance of understanding these interactions for the effective management of the interactively contributed plant nutrients in the presence of the applied wastewater and biosolids

Esplicitare i contesti: estrazione di grafi di conoscenza da descrizioni archivistiche tradizionali

Archival finding aids are often only partially capable of fully expressing the informational potential of data due to the presence of numerous unstructured fields in the descriptions of documentary collections. The prevalence of extensive literal sections, or full-text fields, limits both the possibility of semantic queries and the ability to uncover the latent contexts embedded in such unstructured text. This study proposes a methodology for the automatic extraction of knowledge (Knowledge Extraction, KE) from archival descriptions, aiming to enhance their structuring and semantic interoperability. Through a case study based on the Italian National Archival System (SAN) and leveraging ready-to-use tools such as TINT, FRED, and GPT-4o, we conducted a preliminary evaluation of various morphosyntactic, lexical, and semantic analysis techniques. The most promising results highlighted the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs), leading to the development of a KE pipeline based on the open-source model Llama 3.3. The findings demonstrate a high capacity for extracting biographical events and relationships, achieving a good balance between precision and recall, thus confirming the validity of the approach. However, the need for a more robust software architecture emerges, as LLM-based pipelines must become truly scalable to enable effective integration into archival systems. Gli strumenti di corredo archivistici sono spesso solo parzialmente capaci di esprimere il vero potenziale informativo dei dati, a causa della molteplicità di campi non strutturati presenti nelle descrizioni dei complessi documentari. La presenza di numerose sezioni literal, ovvero a testo pieno, limita, da un lato, la possibilità di interrogazioni a base semantica e, dall'altro, non consente l'apertura ai numerosi contesti latenti che tali porzioni di testo non strutturato veicolano. Questa ricerca propone una metodologia per l’estrazione automatica di conoscenza (Knowledge Extraction, KE) da descrizioni archivistiche, con l’obiettivo di migliorarne la strutturazione e l’interoperabilità semantica. Attraverso un caso di studio basato sul Sistema Archivistico Nazionale (SAN) e utilizzando strumenti ready-to-use come TINT, FRED e GPT-4o, si è valutata preliminarmente l’efficacia di diverse tecniche di analisi morfosintattica, lessicale e semantica. I risultati più promettenti hanno evidenziato il potenziale dei Large Language Model (LLM), portando allo sviluppo di una pipeline di estrazione della conoscenza basata sul modello open-source Llama 3.3. I risultati hanno dimostrato un’elevata capacità di estrazione di eventi biografici e relazioni, con un buon equilibrio tra precisione e recall, confermando la validità dell’approccio. Tuttavia, emerge l’esigenza un’architettura software più robusta affinché le pipeline basate su LLMs diventino davvero scalabili nell’ottica di un’integrazione nei sistemi archivistici.&nbsp

We Would Not Be Here: Reproduction, Scholarship, and the Rise of Techno-authoritarianism

In this essay, I seek to braid together several ideas related to democracy, academic methodologies, and information technologies, all of which are being used as capital by tech billionaires, and, in partnership with institutions and government, being wielded as means of control. Currently, our reproductive rights are being stripped from us, threatening our very participation in scholarly life, and our students are terrified of authoritarianism at their doorstep. Scholarship has repeatedly shown that technologies are political, and in our current moment of inequality and rising authoritarianism, we should be wary of any promises of technological liberation. The academy, both in its research and teaching, is a pillar of democracy, and it is being threatened on many fronts. Rather than seeking technological solutions, I argue that our research should democratize the production of ideas by bringing in more voices to do the research and telling real human stories that haven’t yet been told