Archive for March, 2007
ClassAss 2007
Mar 31st
I’ll be talking at the Classical Association conference at Birmingham in a few weeks. I was told there’d be a session on publishing, so I get to be Bora for a day.
The plan is to talk about Peer-to-peer publishing and the creative process. The other speakers seem to be talking about publishing finished work. There’s an space which you could drive open access into, but I’m only intending to talk for about ten to fifteen minutes. Given I’ll be scheduled alongside someone from a publisher and established academics, I don’t think that raising this here would be a viable and could do more harm than good. Instead I’m going to be a bit more subversive – is publishing about publishing finished work?
This is a session for postgrads, and I accept that help is needed to get something published in a timely manner. But I also think that another thing that can help grad students is feedback. This is why many students will be giving papers at the conference this year. (more…)
Stock Photography: The alternatives
Mar 29th
I received a press release for a new site selling stock photos of ancient sites. I’m not linking to it because the photos cost hundreds of dollars, and the price isn’t revealed until after you register. I appreciate that photographic work isn’t just a case of point ‘n’ click, but I struggle with the concept of buying the rights to one photo of a Sicilian temple when I can fly to Palermo, pay for the carbon offset, and get dozens of my own exclusive photographs more cheaply.
I try and use my own photos for a lot of what I do but when that fails there are a few alternatives. Flickr has a Creative Commons search which is useful. The Stock Exchange also has free royalty-free photos for use. If I need something weird and professional I tend to use iStockPhoto, which costs, but isn’t bank-breakingly expensive.
If you want a specialised image search there’s the Archaeology Image Bank set up by the Higher Education Academy, which I’ll have to remember to donate some more images to. Leicester’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History also has an image bank.
The site is hoping to sell academic subscriptions, but I can’t help the money would be better spent More >
300
Mar 28th
Modern Sparta
I went to see 300 and it was quite an experience. The plot, and if you’re an ancient historian you will need this explaining, is more or less as follows.
For no apparent reason an emissary arrives from Persia demanding a minor tribute. The king, Leo Nydas, refuses and asks the council to send an army to Thermopylae to fight the Persians. A woman takes her top off. The council refuses to send an army. Another woman takes her top off. Then Leo and 300 volunteers go on a trip to Thermopylae to fight Persians for the remainder of the film in a heterosexual way.
It’s not fair to judge the film by its historical accuracy. The Persians weren’t really Orcs. However some of the inaccuracies are interesting because they reveal how badly we understand Sparta. There’s a point in the film where one of the councilmen of Sparta is angry because the Queen hasn’t taken her top off recently. He tells her he’s a politician rather than a warrior. Ouch! The film itself makes clear that to be a Spartan was to be a warrior. He also says that not all Spartans were born equal. But the Spartans, as More >
The Orange and Blue Template
Mar 28th
I was planning to use this for a presentation coming soon and release the template afterwards. It’s recently occurred to me that it won’t work for the animations I’ll be using. So it’s available for download now as a PowerPoint file. It’s very basic but it may be of use to someone, and if it isn’t then I’ll pick it up myself from here sometime in the future.
Clioaudio 3: Reburial, Research and Respect
Mar 27th
Clioaudio 3: Reburial, Research and Respect
There was a story several weeks ago about demands for reburial of human bones by Pagans in the UK. I’ve got two episodes of Clioaudio talking about that. The first is live now, with Yvonne Aburrow talking about the diversity of Pagan beliefs and how she’d solve the problem. The next episode will be an interview with Emma Restall-Orr on her work with the Manchester Museum in presenting Lindow Man.
Things I’ve learned? I need to multi-track interviews. At the moment recording puts everything from the interviewees and myself onto the same audio track. This means that if I have a coughing fit I could drown out the other person. This is a fixable problem. A better microphone stand might also be a good idea.
Interview technique is only going to come with practice so my thanks go to Yvonne and Emma for being willing guinea-pigs. There’s stuff they’ve said that I disagree with, for instance I’m really not convinced that postmodernism meaningfully exists as a philosophical argument. It’s a category that seems as coherent as Anglophonic Philosophy as far as I can tell and I’ll write more about that some time in the future.
I also didn’t really press More >
Googlebomb (yes I am that slow)
Mar 27th
I saw this on A Blog Around The Clock, but it didn’t trigger any braincells. My cold meant that I wasn’t following American politics, and this looked like a politics post. Luckily I’ve now also seen it on Barista and it makes sense. A Googlebomb is what happens when people link to something en masse to alter Google results. The most famous one was miserable failure which used to bring up George W. Bush’s page at the Whitehouse website as the first result. The way it worked was that enough people highlighted the words miserable failure and linked to the Decider’s page.
It’s now also being used for bullying. In the case of Jill Filipovic she’s been the victim of a Googlebomb by various anonymous people. The text below the fold is designed to rectify that. It links to various pages of hers in a bid to move them up the Google rankings. (more…)
The Bosnian Pyramid threatens to spread
Mar 26th
Bosnia’s Pyramid Scheme. Photo (cc) Blandm.
I haven’t posted much on the pyramania in Bosnia since September. Still a trickle of comments and complaints continue to come in. There’s a small number of people who insist that Osmanagić should be allowed to do what he likes and any evidence that he’s incompetent or plain wrong should be ignored. Reports by archaeologists from the EAA? The ‘experts’ (never forget the scarequotes) don’t know everything. Bosnian Geologists conclude the hill is natural. Ignore them, the ‘experts’ don’t know everything. Robert Schoch, a geologist admired by the alternative archaeology community has examined the site, including the the tunnels, and has said it’s natural. Ignore him, the ‘experts’ don’t know everything. The refusal to accept any evidence which contradicts their wishes is known by believers as keeping an open mind.
Now it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is nonsense. The problem for the Bosnian Pyramid Foundation is that people have kept an open mind and listened to what they’ve said. If someone can’t use a tape measure tell if a pyramid is 70m high or 220m high, why should they be capable of an archaeological exacavation? It’s not all about digging, you need More >
The Power of Television
Mar 25th
When I say that posts on TV attract readers, like in the previous review, this is the sort of thing I mean.
Archaeology is a Brand! by Cornelius Holtorf and illustrated by Quentin Drew
Mar 25th
I did have some qualms about reviewing this book before it arrived. It’s a free review copy, so I was wondering what to do if it turned out to be awful. I tend not to write negative reviews if I can help it, unless something is surprisingly bad, because I prefer to spend my time talking about things which deserve attention. Fortunately this remains an unsolved puzzle, because Archaeology is a Brand! by Cornelius Holtorf and illustrated by Quentin Drew is (unsurprisingly) good.
In fact I shall be cheerfully taking ideas out of this book for a few posts in the future. The reason is that this book tackles an under-appreciated aspect of archaeology, it’s public perception. Holtorf argues that archaeology is in an enviable position compared to other academic subjects as it is one of the few fields which seems to enjoy mass appeal. Yet despite this the public perception of archaeology seems to remain a major problem for some in the profession. In one of the many quotable passages he says:
I have given up counting the number of exhibitions, educational events and publications that are shouting into the reader’s face that “the real archaeologist works practically never like Indiana More >
Clioaudio: Who is Buried in the Tomb of Jesus?
Mar 21st
It’s just occurred to me I forgot to mention Clioaudio episode two here. It’s out of date now, as it’s the Tomb of Jesus, but if you missed it it’s below:
[audio http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.clioaudio.com/audio/clioaudio2-tombofjesus.mp3]I mention it as I’m working on finishing episodes three and four. The plan was to produce an episode on the Pagan reburial story that was in the Guardian a while back. What happened is I got two very good interviews about the treatment of human remains, so I’ve split it into two managable episodes. Three should be uploaded after the weekend and four follow after around a week later.
Hopefully I’ll also get a couple of blog entries written up tomorrow too. I have news from Bosnia and also a review of Archaeology is a Brand! to write.
