City of Rome Exhibition
An Exhibition by the Graduates of the School of Classics
Classics undergraduates at Trinity Saint David are gaining hands-on experience of working with rare and historic books by taking part in an innovative series of workshops at the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives, Lampeter.
The workshops introduce student-researchers to the use of primary source materials and to the close examination of historic books as material objects. Participants also prepare an exhibition of the materials they have used and the findings of their research. The physical exhibition is accompanied by an online version published on the University of Wales Trinity Saint David website and therefore available worldwide.
This year’s workshops will culminate in an exhibition of historic materials in the Roderic Bowen Library and Archive Reading Room at Lampeter during Graduation week, July 4 to 8, 2011. The online version of the exhibition will be published to the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives website during the same week .
The workshops investigate themes arising from two undergraduate modules, The City of Rome: Anarchy and Order , which is the subject of this year’s exhibition, and Under the Microscope: Regional Archaeology and History. The workshops connected with the second module were used to prepare students for the presentations they made during a field trip to archaeological sites in the Naples area, including Pompeii, in Italy.
Research Conference: ‘Ruin or Renewal? Places and the Transformation of Memory in the City of Rome’.
The workshops based on The City of Rome: Anarchy and Order are part of preliminary work to identify materials in the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives for use in a new international project that focuses on specific themes concerning the city of Rome in Antiquity and beyond. The project will also investigate and document the development of Ancient Rome in the European Imagination. The project is collaboration between staff members of the School of Classics of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (James Richardson and Marta Garcia Morcillo) and of the University of Newcastle. The conference ‘Ruin or Renewal? Places and the Transformation of Memory in the City of Rome’ is planned for March 2012 at UWTSD.
The preliminary assessment work by student-researchers identified a wide range of historic materials, the earliest of which were printed during the Renaissance, but most dating from the Enlightenment. The assessment included literary texts, antiquarian works, and books on architecture, art and travel. The materials chosen by students reflect the creation, marketing and sale of ancient Rome as a cultural commodity.
Monuments of Rome Exhibition Poster
