‘There Buds the Laurel’: Nature, Temporality and the Making of Place in the Cemeteries of Roman Italy

Using the necropolis environments of the Vesuvian region of Imperial period Italy as a case study, this paper examines the ways in which multiple, overlapping, and temporally specific senses of place were associated with Roman funerary landscapes. In particular, it explores the role of the agency of the natural environment–e.g. the more-than-human or ‘planty’ agency of trees, plants, flowers, and fruits–in the creation of these places, arguing that they are best understood as the dynamic product of in the moment experiences. Focusing on issues of temporality and sensory perception, it is demonstrated that, just as place was itself always in the process of becoming, so too were many of the elements which produced it. Consequently, this study offers a new perspective on the ephemerality of place which foregrounds the currently undervalued material agency of the more-than-human world in the construction of Roman experiences, identities, and knowledge

Hand in hand: Rethinking anatomical votives as material things.

Religious experience in ancient Italy was intimately connected with the production, manipulation, veneration, and discarding of material objects. This chapter argues that for a fuller understanding of lived religion it is necessary to approach these objects as more than the mere material or visual expression of otherwise intangible concepts. It consequently explores the affective relations between things, particularly how objects and human bodies assemble in order to produce lived religious experience and religious knowledge. Taking votive terracotta models of hands from mid-Republican Italy as a case study, this chapter adopts a broadly new materialist approach to the examination of anatomical votives, focusing on the tripartite affectivity of these offerings as objects manipulated in the moment of ritual, as material things, and as bodily proxies

Goal-directed bodily signals in birds and frogs

Funding: Horizon 2020 Framework Programme Grant number 802719.Researchers have recently described the wing-fluttering signal of Japanese tits and eyeblink signal of concave-eared torrent frogs as bodily communication that elicits specific responses. I assess the evidence that these may be intentional, goal-directed signals using established criteria for gestural communication.Peer reviewe

Care staff intentions to support adults with an intellectual disability to engage in physical activity: An application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Researchers suggest that people with an intellectual disability (ID) undertake less physical activity than the general population and many rely, to some extent, on others to help them to access activities. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model was previously found to significantly predict the intention of care staff to facilitate a healthy diet in those they supported. The present study examined whether the TPB was useful in predicting the intentions of 78 Scottish care staff to support people with ID to engage in physical activity. Regression analyses indicated that perceived behavioural control was the most significant predictor of both care staff intention to facilitate physical activity and reported physical activity levels of the people they supported. Attitudes significantly predicted care staff intention to support physical activity, but this intention was not itself significantly predictive of reported activity levels. Increasing carers' sense of control over their ability to support clients' physical activity may be more effective in increasing physical activity than changing their attitudes towards promoting activit

Challenging the cost of clinical negligence

Healthcare professionals in South Africa (SA) are facing challenging times. As the clinical negligence claims environment in SA deteriorates, the impact is being felt by healthcare professionals, but also by the wider public owing to the strain that costs place on the public purse. The authors look at the current claims environment, and explain why a debate about reform is so important