• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Archivio istituzionale della ricerc... close
• Journal of Ancient History and Arch... close

This book on Slavic matriarchy is the result of the studies and researches that Evel Gasparini carried out over the span of his lifetime. Intrigued by the possibility of a close link between the collective ownership of the land and the ancient agricultural-matriarchal substrate of Slav culture, Gasparini launched on the titanic enterprise of analysing the archaeological and historical sources of early Slavic civilisation. Basing himself on a concept of culture elaborated in the ethnological field, he brought to light certain contradictions in the application of the Indo-European paradigm to Slavic culture and identified a series of elements illustrating the matriarchal substrate. Exploiting an uncommon knowledge of cultural anthropology and profound linguistic competencies, in this book Gasparini maps out a complex panorama ranging from the economy to the social structure and from the religious traditions to music and dance. Out of print for some time, the book is now proposed in a new, more convenient form, complete with an appendix on Finns and Slavs – which was originally intended as another chapter in the book but was then left out – a detailed preface by Gasparini's disciple Remo Faccani, and a bibliography of the scholar's oeuvre edited by Donatella Possamai.Il matriarcato slavo e il frutto degli studi e delle ricerche che Evel Gasparini compi durante l'arco della sua vita. Affascinato dall'ipotesi di una stretta connessione fra la proprieta collettiva delle terre e l'antico substrato agricolo-matriarcale della civilta slava, Gasparini si lancio nella titanica impresa di analizzare le fonti archeologiche e storiche sulla prima civilta slava. Basandosi su un'idea di cultura elaborata in campo etnologico, egli mise in luce alcune contraddizioni nell'applicazione del paradigma indoeuropeo alla civilta slava e individuo una serie di elementi a dimostrazione del substrato matriarcale. Grazie a conoscenze non comuni in antropologia culturale e a profonde competenze linguistiche, nel Matriarcato slavo Gasparini delinea un panorama complesso, dall'economia alla struttura sociale, dalle tradizioni religiose alla musica e alle danze. Scomparso dal mercato editoriale, il volume viene ora riproposto in una nuova, piu agevole veste, corredata dall'appendice Finni e slavi – che doveva rappresentare un ulteriore capitolo del Matriarcato, ma ne resto esclusa –, da una dettagliata prefazione di Remo Faccani, che di Gasparini fu discepolo, e da una bibliografia delle opere dello studioso curata da Donatella Possamai.

Though the modern study of Byzantine civilisation and history dates back to the late 19th century, the establishment of a definitive introductory textbook in the English language would be a slow process that would not culminate until the 1950’s. Due in part to the enormous chronological termini of Byzantine History, and major primary sources in at least five different languages, the number of introductory works is much smaller than in other historical disciplines. As a result, Byzantine history textbooks are still very closely welded to two initial templates established in 1892 and 1925. This article will briefly examine the initial templates laid down by the early authors of Byzantine textbooks. Following the examination of these templates, we will move chronologically through some of the main publications of the long 20th century, concluding in the present day, gauging the impact of these works through scholarly reaction and publication information.

International audience; Lucie Alexis, Réponses à la mission culturelle de la télévision publique. Analyse sémiologique des rapports institutionnels, des figures de l’artiste et des écritures numériques à France Télévisions (1993-2017), Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas (dir. Frédéric Lambert), 17 novembre 2017.Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la mission culturelle de la télévision publique avec l’objectif d’identifier les moyens par lesquels France Télévision produit une cohérence en matière d’expériences culturelles. Nous interrogeons la conception de la culture de la télévision de service public, ses qualités particulières et ses principes régulateurs. Pour cela, nous avons circonscrit la notion de culture à une définition restrictive qui inclut les grandes disciplines artistiques, renvoyant notamment aux noms des administrations opérationnelles actuelles du ministère de la Culture, et les productions des industries culturelles.

Rano Raraku, the crater lake constrained by basaltic tuff that served as the primary quarry used to construct themoaistatues on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), has experienced fluctuations in lake level over the past centuries. As one of the only freshwater sources on the island, understanding the present and past geochemical characteristics of the lake water is critical to understand if the lake could have been a viable freshwater source for Rapa Nui. At the time of sampling in September 2017, the maximum lake depth was ~1 m. The lake level has substantially declined in the subsequent years, with the lake drying almost completely in January 2018. The lake is currently characterized by highly anoxic conditions, with a predominance of ammonium ions on nitrates, a high concentration of organic carbon in the water-sediment interface and reducing conditions of the lake, as evidenced by Mn/Fe and Cr/V ratios. Our estimates of past salinity inferred from the chloride mass balance indicates that it was unlikely that Rano Raraku provided a viable freshwater source for early Rapa Nui people. The installation of an outlet pipe around 1950 that was active until the late 1970s, as well as grazing of horses on the lake margins appear to have significantly impacted the geochemical conditions of Rano Raraku sediments and lake water in recent decades. Such impacts are distinct from natural environmental changes and highlight the need to consider the sensitivity of the lake geochemistry to human activities.

Two novels, Montserrat Roig’s El temps de les cireres (1976) and Luis Goytisolo’s Recuento (1973), provide numerous examples of how walking in the city can be a particularly significant experience, profoundly marked by history and politics. This article discusses the ways that Roig and Goytisolo guide their characters and readers into an urban jungle of words with a very precise purpose: the critical interpretation of space according to the values of the writer in the present. Proffering a quasi-archeological reading of a jumble of temporal traces scrawled on the walls of old buildings, Goytisolo’s narrator expresses, in a manner not unlike that of Roig’s characters, a complex mise en question of the past and the present. In Roig’s novel, what comes to the fore is the funereal-like theatricality of the old Ribera neighborhood, which functions not only as a space of habitation but also as a setting for cultural memory and the representation of Catalan history.