Twitter and blogs, and embarrassingly enthusiastic drunken conversations at parties, are not add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion that underpins it.
(Tim Hitchcock)
Hosting a blog on a scientific journal can be a source of controversy among academics. It may sound like a frivolous distraction from the real work, revealing a too favorable attitude toward social media. However, as academics we are constantly asked to make our research more relevant to a wider audience, or in other words, to have an impact on contemporary society. Not surprisingly, the impact factor of a research is crucial when assessing the overall value of a project. And yet, much of the academic discourse is still relegated to small conversations among ourselves, professional seminars and conferences, book reviews and specialist hard copy press, inevitably ruling out the possibility of a broader social dialog. As rightly argued by Tim Hitchcock, professor of Digital History at the University of Sussex, “If there is a ‘crisis’ in the humanities, it lies in how we have our public debates, rather than in their content […] we need to remember that the role of the academic humanist has always been a public one – however mediated through teaching and publication. By building blogging, Twitter, Flickr, and shared libraries in Zotero, into our research programmes – into the way we work anyway – we both get more research done and build a community of engaged readers for the work itself.”
Academically a blogpost may well not be cited on its own right but certainly boosts citations for our work. A post reaches other researchers in our specific discipline, and because it is accessibly written, it travels well, gets re-tweeted and re-liked, reaching thus also academics outside our immediate sub-field and discipline, potentially attracting new and more varied audiences to our research.
Encouraging the dialogue between different disciplines, promoting a more socially and politically engaged archaeology and including a wider the audience into the archaeological debate, feature prominently among the objective pursued by Ex Novo. The decision of hosting a blog on our website goes exactly in this direction. In order to have impact, archaeology needs indeed to be public and being challenged beyond the academy.
To launch the ExN Blog we are glad to host the reflections of Lennart Kruijer (Leiden University) about the complex relationship between post-colonial instances within classical archaeology and the sometimes still-colonial practices embedded in this discipline, especially when it comes to fieldwork.
On Discipline and Place: Mediterranean fieldwork and Classical Archaeology between ‘The Devotee’ and ‘The Inner Colonial’
(by Lennart Kruijer)
In line with our goal of promoting an archaeology more socially and politically engaged, the ExN Blog is happy to share the thought provoking article by Claudio Cavazzuti (Durham University) discussing the future of our discipline in the aftermaths of Brexit and the so-called populist revolt.
Brexit, la “rivolta populista”e il futuro dell’archeologia
(by Claudio Cavazzuti)
Dealing with the Legacies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Ex Novo Vol. 5) Guest Editor Flamina Bartolini The fifth volume of Ex Novo has the pleasure to host Flaminia Bartolini as guest editor for the special issue titled Heritage in the Making. Dealing with Legacies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. This collection of
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Ex Novo Vol. 4, December 2019 Edited by H. Van Londen, M. J. Schlaman, A. Travaglia The fourth volume of Ex Novo has the pleasure to host Heleen van Londen, Marjo J. Schlaman, and Andrea Travaglia as guest editors of the special issue titled The Natural and The Cultural. Integrating Approaches in Landscape Heritage Management.
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(by Maja Gori, Martina Revello Lami, Alessandro Pintucci) Editorial: Practices Representations and Meanings of Human Mobility in Archaeology It has been abundantly demonstrated that theories and paradigms in the humanities are influenced by historical, economic and socio-cultural conditions, which have profoundly influenced archaeology’s representation of migration. This was mostly conceived as the study of the
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Practices, Representations and Meanings Volume 3, 2018 Edited by M. Gori, A. Pintucci & M. Revello Lami It has been abundantly demonstrated that theories and paradigms in the humanities are influenced by historical, economic and socio-cultural conditions, which have profoundly influenced archaeology’s representation of migration. This was mostly conceived as the study of the movement
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Who Owns the Past? Archaeological Heritage between Idealisation and Destruction (edited by M. Gori, M. Revello Lami, A. Pintucci) The second issue of Ex Novo hosts papers exploring the various ways in which the past is remembered, recovered, created and used. In particular, contributions discuss the role of archaeology in present-day conflict areas and its
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(edited by M. Gori and V. Higgins) The first issue is concerned with quite a challenging topic, that is “The Impact of the Fall of Communism on European Heritage”: it results from a regular session held at the 2014 Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Istanbul. The proceedings are edited by Valerie Higgins
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Learning, Teaching, Changing African Archaeologies Spanish – Algerian teams surveying the area at the foot of the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania (Photo Credits @ Javier Rodriguez Pandozi) Our understanding of African archaeologies is often affected by Eurocentric, colonialist, and post-colonialist perspectives. These shape our perception of Africa as this singular monolith of backwardness, devastation,
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Unravelling threads of time: Intersections of archaeology, myth, and identity Editors: M. Revello Lami, J. Garcia-Sanchez & M. Gori Embark on a journey through time with the 7th issue of Ex Novo Journal of Archaeology, where history, myth, and identity intersect to untangle the interwoven fabric of our shared past and present. Papers gathered in
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Balkan Archaeology as a Laboratory. Challenging Old Paradigms and Experimenting with New Ones Edited by Maja Gori, Daniela Heilmann & Kristina Penezić The two main shifts that have challenged traditional paradigms of interpretation in European and world archaeology – the emergence of processualism starting in the late 1960s and the ensuing counter movement of post-processual
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We invite contributions that engage with contemporary perspectives on antiquity linking the past to the present and cross traditional scholarly boundaries. In addition, we welcome papers that explore the multifaceted relationship between archaeological practice and the role of the past in current society by bringing to the fore current theoretical, political and heritage issues connected
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Interviews CIA 2021 Annual Meeting A Conversation with: Felipe CRIADO-BOADO ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32028/vol6isspp227 Yannis HAMILAKIS ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32028/vol6isspp233 Cornelius HOLTORF ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32028/vol6isspp239 Lynn MESKELL ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7 DOI:
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Superare il guado: riflessioni su archeologia, storia sociale e modelli di autorappresentazione delle comunità antiche e moderne Valeria ACCONCIA ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32028/vol6isspp125-157 Il Milione. The first 14 years of ERC funding to human past studies (SH6): an Italian perspective Giancarlo LAGO & Andrea DI RENZONI ISSN: 2531-8810 Published
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PART I Making Archaeology Public. A View from the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and beyond. Foreword Editorial Board ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32028/vol6isspp1 Paper, perception and… facts? Exploring archaeological heritage management in the Mediterranean and the weight of public archaeology Jaime ALMANSA SÁNCHEZ ISSN: 2531-8810 Published online: December 2021 ISBN: 978-1-78969-894-7
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Making Archaeology Public. A View from the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Beyond The concept of Public Archaeology has profoundly changed since Mc Gimsey’s first formulation in the early 1970s, as it developed a solid conceptual and practical framework along the years that makes it now an independent branch of archaeology. However, in English-speaking and Northern
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(by Martina Revello Lami) Martina Revello Lami’s conversation with the author of the front and back cover closes the 2020 issue. It is now an established tradition for Ex Novo to host great artworks, but this year we launched an open call to select original creations inspired to the theme of the volume. The visionary
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(by Enrico Giannichedda) Prendendo le mosse dalle recenti acquisizioni dell’archeologia cognitiva, Michele Cometa, uno specialista di storia e teoria della letteratura, affronta in un corposo volume una questione fondamentale: la relazione fra produzione di utensili (i cicli produttivi), evoluzione del linguaggio, sviluppo di capacità narrative finalizzate a raccontare ‘storie’ utili. Una questione che, a mio
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