Foreword

First paragraph: From early engagements with history in the classroom to family visits of the JORVIK Viking Centre, from teenager discoveries of Tolkien’s epic novels to TV viewings of The Last Kingdom in later adulthood, our everyday experiences have impressed upon our minds and hearts powerful but personalised images of what Nick Merriman called the ‘official’ past (Merriman 1991). These realms are constructions of knowing and feeling that may be more or less persistent. These images not only shape our understanding of the world as we see it, but stay attached to some of our deepest emotions; they are intermingled with our fears, hopes and dreams of safety, self-worth and acceptance. Endeavouring to understand the processes through which the past is presenced is one of the most important facets of our profession as archaeologists and historians (Bonacchi 2014, 2018; Brophy 2018)

Co-producing Knowledge Online

Knowledge production today relies increasingly on exchanges between groups of people who connect through the Internet. This can happen in many forms that include, for example, consulting and amending Wikipedia entries, engaging in Twitter conversations about a certain topic, or developing research software by building on existing code released under a license that allows free sharing, modification and reuse. Other kinds of collaborative research are enabled by more bespoke websites built for specific institutions or groups, such as the Smithsonian Transcription Centre, which was created to involve interested volunpeers (volunteers who are viewed as peers) in the digitisation of collections that support multiple research agendas. The British Library has also recently embraced a similar goal, setting up the LibCrowds platform, while adventure seekers can connect to GlobalXplorer and inspect satellite images to identify signs of looting and assist with understanding the current state of preservation of archaeology-rich landscapes worldwide. For nature lovers, Snapshot Serengeti offers the possibility to ‘observe animals in the wild’ and help to answer questions about the ways in which competing species coexist. All of these processes have become possible thanks to the wide diffusion of the Internet, and the emergence of online public spaces from an interactive and interconnected World Wide Web. This kind of web has enabled new practices of data and information generation, sharing and aggregation, but, arguably, the collaborative production (and consumption) of knowledge is sometimes so deeply embedded in our personal and professional lives that we do not always pause to reflect on its nature and deeper implications. 1 The aim of this review is to bring attention to these issues by addressing a number of questions relating to online research collaborations established between stakeholders within and beyond the academy. How can collaborative research be strategically and effectively designed online? What are its roots and traditions? What values can it generate for participants? What effects does it have on those excluded? And what are its consequences in epistemological and ethical terms

Spatial goals and actions in the orbitofrontal cortex

"The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to be involved in the representation of anticipated behavioral outcomes that drive goaldirected behavior. Among the properties of goals or outcomes that may be represented in the OFC is their spatial location, a fundamental feature of goals for animals that rely heavily on locomotion for foraging. Previous studies have described neural correlates of choice and goal location in rats performing spatial two-alternative choice tasks. However, relatively little is known about the spatial properties of these OFC neural representations.(...)

Digital Media in Public Archaeology

The twenty years following the mid-1990s witnessed a step change in the communication landscape, which can be summarised under the label of new digital media. In this period, the popularity of the Internet and mobile technologies has become more widespread, and previously distinct media forms have been progressively converging into fewer and ‘newer’ ones (Casey et al. 2008: 57–8; Castells 2010; Castells and Cardoso 2005; Lister et al. 2009: 420; Livingstone and Das 2009). An additional development since the early 2000s has been the shift from a straightforwardly informative World Wide Web to a more dramatically interactive Web 2.0 and 3.0, better equipped to support collaboration (e.g. O’Reilly 2005). This chapter will discuss the transformative roles of new digital media in public archaeology. It will focus on addressing key aspects relating to digital engagement, and thereafter explore pos- sible applications of ‘media-as-data’ (Housley et al. 2014: 7) for public archaeology research

Public Archaeology cannot just 'fly at dusk': the reality and complexities of generating public impact

First paragraph: In his debate piece, 'The Brexit hypothesis and prehistory', Kenneth Brophy foregrounds some of the possible consequences of archaeology's media and public exposure. While recognising that (mis)appropriations of research for political purposes are nothing new, he stresses that these instrumental uses might have been amplified by a more interconnected Web. Brophy underlines that people are frequently presented with and consume archaeological findings in ways that relate the latter to contemporary social issues, such as Brexit, often inappropriately. His proposed solution to the problem is twofold. On the one hand, he recommends that archaeologists should 'push back' erroneous and hyperbolic accounts of their work featuring in the media and in public discussions online. On the other hand, he encourages them to 'pre-empt' such interpretations, also thanks to insights derived from social research aimed at understanding how individuals and groups interact with the past today. While I fully agree with the author that these measures are welcome and valuable, I believe that they cannot be, on their own, a 'solution'. They are laudable from a deontological point of view, but do not take into account the full reality of the world of media and communications, nor the ways in which people actually leverage the past when making sense of situations that concern them. Here I will briefly expand on both of these two points and argue that the dynamics of generating impact are complex and lengthy. Bearing this in mind, being public opinion influencers requires more substantial and profound public engagement on the part of 'public intellectuals', as Brophy calls them, than what is suggested in his paper

Museum websites & social media. Issues of participation, sustainability, trust and diversity

First paragraph: 'Digital heritage' is a fluid expression, as showed by the current lack of consensus over a definition for this subject area (Sánchez Laws 2015, 48, 49). The latter has received increasing interest from researchers and practitioners alike, and especially so since the beginning of the twenty-first century, when a more interconnected kind of World Wide Web started to establish itself within networked pockets of the 'network society' (Castells 2010). Despite this growing attention, however, an extensive and accessible discussion over the role of social media and more traditional websites in and for museum engagement specifically was still missing. The author of Museum Websites and Social Media contributes to bridge this gap, building on literature concerned with the history of museums and computing, digital heritage and New Museology, amongst which Ross Parry’s work is noticeable and highlighted (Parry 2007, 2010). Sánchez Laws provides a very useful resource to guide the development of reflective practice, by articulating the theoretical underpinnings of different types of social media(ted) museum engagements. In doing so, she addresses three under-investigated issues. The first concerns the very nature of digital heritage and its relation with the characters that are recognised as being distinctive of heritage. The second issue pertains the need for a deep analysis of the actual potential of digital technologies in the heritage domain – where museums are situated – beyond ingenuous techno-centred enthusiasms and marketing-oriented aims of audience expansion. What can the application of digital methods bring to heritage organisations and groups acting in different social, physical, cultural and political 'spaces' that could not be achieved otherwise? What drawbacks can be expected? The third issue revolves around the dynamic links between ‘benefits’ and 'costs' in the longer-term maintenance of digital resources and practices.Output Type: Book Revie

Through the Looking Glass: Another Reading of Willa Cather\u27s The Professor\u27s House

This project examines Cather’s experimentation with conflicting voices of narrative authority in the presentation of four central female characters in The Professor’s House, using St. Peter and an entity termed the implied narrator as lenses through which we view other characters. The project is broken down into four chapters, each dealing one addressing the central issues involving that specific female character

Assessing the transforming social values of cities in the longue durée : analysis of a Florence neighbourhood from the Middle Ages to the present

Peer reviewe