We dig Rome: AIRC on Youtube

We dig Rome and we like sharing it, so in 2009 we created an AIRC account on Youtube:  WeDigRome where we upload AIRC-produced filmettes about our programs (inluding our summer excavation and full-immersion Latin) and our documentary projects such as Fasti Online and upcoming Digging History.

Our latest videos are Unlisted 2013: Conversation for Conservation, our annual cultural heritage conference.  If you were not able to attend the conference, take a look in our recently uploaded videos where we feature each Unlisted2013 speaker.

Call for Photos: Rome away from Rome

Truth be told, the Roman Empire didn’t fully collapse and disappear. We see traces of classical architecture in our every day life, whether when walking around a sporting arena (hello, Los Angeles Coliseum!) or walking through a residential building entrance with a subtle egg-and-dart decoration. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, there is always a little reminder of Rome that keeps the city, well, eternal.

With that in mind, we are asking you to show us Rome in your town with a call for photos. New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Seattle, London, Las Vegas, Bala Cynwyd, EUR…. we all know you have a little Rome in you, so show us what you’ve got. Friezes, gardens, markets, facades, rosettes, temples, train stations, and more. Does your Rome outside of Rome fit in with its surroundings or feel just a bit out of place? Is it reminiscent of the Pantheon, the Ara Pacis, the Roman Forum? And please let us know how you feel about it.

Rome away from Rome:Submit photos to info[at]romanculture.org with a description of what it is and where it is located. You can also submit directly to Facebookand Twitter. Make sure to include hashtag #romeawayfromrome, and any other info you’d like to share about the photo, as well as your blog, website, Twitter and other accounts. Upon receiving your photo(s), we will feature them on our blog, Facebook and Twitter. There is no deadline- just an ongoing photo project!

Photo of the New York Public Library by GreatBuildings

Conversations on Unlisted 2013 conference for #culturalheritage

Looking back at our Unlisted 2013 conference, I am proud to say that this year’s conference was our most successful to date.  As in years past, the Unlisted conference brought together academics and professionals in a forum to discuss cultural heritage, with this year’s theme “Conversation for Conservation”, i.e. the necessary dialogue in social media for cultural heritage and ongoing awareness.

Over the past few years, we have chosen to accompany and complement our mission to promote cultural heritage by investing time in social media and video production, as we feel these contemporary forums are integral to education, promotion and sharing messages.  Our objective for Unlisted since the beginning was never to be a strictly academic conference for archaeologists and conservators but rather more out of the box and on the fringe of academia in the hopes of inspiring ideas and opening eyes/ears to a different kind of dialogue, and likewise expand the audience.

With that in mind, this year, we chose to investigate the overlap of cultural heritage and new media in many different and sometimes unfamiliar areas, leading us to encapsulate our (AIRC and Unlisted participants) interests, questions and potential solutions. This year’s conference was shorter than in prior years- a three-hour program that included presentations and roundtable with a filmmaker, a journalist, two photographers, two social media strategists, along with the AIRC itself.

Unlisted 2013 was like viewing cultural heritage through a contemporary and technological kaleidoscope.  Journalist Stephan Faris related our theme to journalism and reportage, while MiBAC’s Giuseppe Ariano discussed the Ministry of Culture’s growing voice and online engagement.  Photographer Sam Horine talked about instantaneous communication via photography and Instagram, citing his work during Hurricane Sandy. Photographer Nicolee Drake also discussed Instagram and the use of imagery in promoting cultural heritage.  Erica Firpo presented AIRC’s social media progress and its focused methods for cultural heritage, whereas I discussed AIRC work in video and photography projects which include Fasti online (Palatine dig), Digging History (AIRC initiavie), MiBAC eduation, and Comune di Roma.  Rose Bonello spoke about her success in engaging communities, finding corporate sponsorship and using technology as an aggregator fueled by passionate storytelling. Most poignant was Brent Huffman as he relayed the power of video film documentary to halt or at least for now retard the destruction of a precious heritage site in Afghanistan.

This year, Unlisted 2013 not only crossed genres -  archaeology, film making and social media- but our dialogue also traversed a variety of platforms outside of the physicality of the conference hall.  Thanks to Marconi University for live streaming, we had conversations via blogs and twitter, and even saw a brief Vine post [username: ThePlanet].   And in the days following the conference, Albert, Sam, Erica, Nicolee and I traveled around Rome and Naples to put this conversation into action through social media outlets and more specifically the hashtag #culturalheritage.  We didn’t invent the tag- cultural heritage has been around forever, but we encourage you to use it when you tweet, tumblr, gram and Vine.  Take a look out posts, feeds, galleries– yes, there is a lot going on but we can make it good.

~Darius Arya, Executive Director

Darius loves to talk about cultural heritage. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram all the time.

Conversation for Conservation, Unlisted 2013

We are very excited to announce the theme of our annual Unlisted Conference, “Cultural Heritage in Digital Media: Conversation for Conservation, Sustaining Global Storytelling Online”. As in our past Unlisted conferences, guest presenters include members from mainstream media and Italian heritage representatives and a dynamic group of “outsiders” who will discuss the role of social media in cultural heritage. We are proud to host two established photographers that are successfully using the Instagram platform- Sam Horine and Nicolee Drake. Along side of them will be journalist Stephan Faris and filmmaker Brent Huffman who attracted global attention through his heritage video The Buddhas of Mes Aynak, a threatened site in Afganistan. There will be an online screening of his film prior to the conference start.

AIRC will talk about our own Kickstarter video project, ongoing educational filming in Rome (sites, excavations in cooperation with several local entities), and social action platform ipetition for the endangered site of the “gladiator tomb.” There will also be a number of people speaking that have found success in multiple stakeholder collaborations, including Nexus Mundi Foundation, an organization that has created a roadmap to involve corporate sponsorship, universities, and local communities.

Our objective in bringing this diverse group together is to foster dialogue in the various methods of promoting of cultural heritage, whether directly related to archaeological heritage or not.
PLEASE JOIN US

In Rome: Join us April 18, 4 pm at the Sala Vittoria Colonna on Via Colonna, 11 of Marconi University. The conference will also be simultaneously translated in English and Italian.

Elsewhere: live stream, April 18 4pm Rome (10am EST).

 

What Every Student of Latin Needs to Know

One of the most important aspects to education is dialogue, and we love to promote an on-going conversation with past, present and future students.  Summer 2012 student Lidia Zanetti Domingues spent last summer with Nancy Llewellyn in the AIRC’s Living Latin, Living History program, and writes about What Every Student of Latin Needs to Know.

At first sight, Latin always seems a tough nut. Whether you are a 14-year-old Italian during the you first day at the High school, or an American teenager who has decided to study Classics at the College, or anybody else eager to read Cicero or saint Augustine in the original language, the first impact with Latin can be really traumatic.

At the very beginning, I felt the same sense of discouragement that probably many of you are feeling or have felt too. But I decided that Latin language and literature were so amazing that it was worth the trouble. I have experienced many different types of teaching in different contexts and I wish to share my experiences with you. Here are some tips that I found very useful during my learning path.

• Latin has a meaning:  many beginners seem to think that, since Latin authors wrote their works so many years ago, their language cannot but be cryptic and unintelligible. Therefore, when they look up a word in the dictionary,  they tend to pick the weirdest meaning they find. Remember that, if classical authors are still read nowadays, it’s because they still can communicate us something! If your translation has not much meaning, it is probably wrong. Yes, decus suum can also mean “the honor of pigs”, but why should Tacitus write about pigs’ honor?
• Beware the false friends: the average student who is an Italian, French or Spanish native speaker is simply too lazy to look up some words in the dictionary. The Latin says focus? Well, it must mean fire (fuoco, feu, fuego), of course! Pity that it actually means “hearth”. Romance languages can be helpful allies to learn Latin also for those who are not native, but if you are not 100% sure about a meaning, it is better to check.
• Accent issues: in one of your first classes, you might have learned the laws of Latin accent and especially the “law of the penultimate accent”. They are very simple, but unfortunately one always discovers very soon that they are not so simple when it comes to implement them: sometimes it looks almost impossible to discern whether the penultimate syllable is long or not. My advice is to always read Latin texts aloud and check the words you are unsure of in dictionaries or grammars. You should also bear in mind the retraction of the accent in compound verbs (e.g. dàre-circùmdare): it is very tricky!
• Verbs quizzes: this is a method I often used during the first years of High school to learn Latin verbal system. With a friend, tear a sheet into pieces and write on them Latin verbs (the more insidious they are, the more useful the game will be), fold them and put them into a bowl. Draw a piece of paper in turn and try to analyze the verb: the other person must check that the answer is correct.
• Try a spoken Latin course: apart from making you get rid of accent problems (if you use Latin words in real conversations, you will know for sure where to put the accent!), knowing how to speak aliquantum Latine also liberates you from the dependence on dictionaries. Also spoken Latin has its complexity and one of the biggest issues is to enhance one’s lexicon. Try to memorize words making connections between them, associating them by topic or by contrast (a word and its antonym, for instance). I also noticed that some of my American classmates struggled a bit trying to pronounce some words (contignatio was especially their nightmare), but they find very useful to divide such words in shorter sections, practicing their pronounce separately and then joining the parts.

Good luck with your Latin studies, and believe me: one day, when you will be reading an epistle of Seneca or an ode of Horace, you will agree with me that all your efforts were worth those enchanting masterpieces!

~Lidia Zanetti Domingues, LATIN2012

Interesting in augmenting your Latin studies with an on-site, practically total immersion in Latin? Please take a look at our Living Latin, Living History program. There are a few spots left for applicants for this summer 2013′s program in Rome- check out our video for the full experience.