Classical Studies

Abstract: How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether representations inside a ...

While the Romans did not have museums, practices of collecting and display were fully developed in Rome. Romans used collections of objects to substantiate, reinforce, and broadcast particular views of the world. This chapter shows how current work in museum studies opens new avenues of research into Roman art. It draws on recent scholarship on collecting that explores debates over cultural property, questions of viewing, and the role of collections in the construction of personal and imperial identities. It is herewith the appropriation of patrimony, with the creation of art, and with ideas of a universal artistic heritage-that we find ancient analogs of modern museums.

Archaeology museums are one of the most important ways that our field communicates its findings to the wider public. 1 The work of archaeology museums, however, is by no means simple. Archaeologists, curators, and museum directors have grappled with recent debates focusing on the politics of display, the cult of the masterpiece, the appeal to multiple publics, and the acquisition and ownership of cultural property. 2 This is an exciting and fraught time for archaeological collections. It is in this context that we should look to the recent renovation of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España (MAN) in Madrid. The new installation , opened to the public in April 2014, addresses many current issues in the field in meaningful ways: it aims for universal accessibility; it embraces technology; it values the effective communication of archaeological findings to a wide audience; it emphasizes the fundamental importance of archaeological and historical context; and it historicizes the museum itself. Potential dangers lurk in the choices that guided MAN's renovation. Appeals to a broad audience, for instance, can lead to the watering down of scholarly rigor, the Disneyfication of the past, the valorization of attention-grabbing technologies over the objects themselves, and the heavy-handed intrusion of the curator onto the viewer's experience. While these threats exist, they are not in evidence at MAN. The new installation offers an importantand what is likely to be influentialmodel for the exhibition of archaeological collections. MAN holds one of the outstanding archaeological collections in Europe. Its origins lie in the 19th-century European creation of national museums. It was founded in 1867 by Queen Isabella II (1830-1904) with the aim of documenting the entire history of Spain and offering an overview of ancient civilizations. Originally, MAN brought together material from three different institutionsthe Museum of Medals and Antiquities at the National 1 The reviewer would like to thank Andrés Carretero Pérez, director of the Museo Ar-queológico Nacional, who kindly provided much information about the renovation project. Thanks also to Elaine Gazda, for sharing her knowledge about many recent museum renovations, and to Yolanda García. Additional figures can be found under this article's abstract on AJA Online (www.ajaonline.org).

The April 2017 AJA carried a review of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España in Madrid (MAN).  That review requires an addendum.  A full account of the new installation of MAN’s collection must acknowledge the display of some recently acquired antiquities with unknown provenance and dubious history.

My paper is centered on the religious tradition of Neopaganism and its potential for the creation and validation of alternative (i.e., non-“mainstream”) forms of masculinity and femininity. My research question(s) are: In what ways do contemporary pagan ritual practices, symbology and mythology redefine masculinity and femininity for their celebrants? Moreover, how does this challenge normalized gender roles? In order to answer these questions I have separated my paper into five sections. Section One will provide a brief overview of Neopaganism as a religion as well as theories of ritual, myth and symbol which will be used throughout my paper. Section Two will hone in on how pagan celebrants form identity within their respective traditions; some of the ways in which pagans construct gender within said traditions; and how Neopaganism, as a subaltern culture, actively resists and redefines societal norms (including gender norms). Section Three will extol several ways in which pagan ritual and festival can contribute to a theoretical framework for the queerying of gender within pagan celebrant identities. Section Four will discuss several challenges to my study, in addition to my responses. Section Five will cover my analytical conclusions, suggestions for supplemental research, and a few far-reaching postulations on more flexible definitions of gender. Throughout, I will be using the theories of John Dewey, Victor Turner, and Barbara Myerhoff to prove my thesis: that contemporary pagan rituals, symbols and myths redefine the concepts of masculinity and femininity by offering semi-historical alternatives and instances of “time out of time” as a means of constructing an identity centered on: a personalized creation of faith; participation in a resistant, subaltern community; and unashamed, ecstatic union with deity. This identity challenges traditional gender roles by fusing traditionally masculine and feminine traits and/or using them in alternative, nonstereotypical ways.

Comics and graphic novels, and their predecessors, have been around for a very long time, but the last decade or so has seen a massive upswing in popularity and wide variations in the material covered. G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel comics, which introduce the third variation of the Ms. Marvel character, is a recent addition (2014) to comics literature and it has taken the world by storm. The comic introduces a young Pakistani and Muslim Ms. Marvel whose powers are activated unexpectedly and which causes major shifts in both the character’s sense of self-worth and in her interactions with her cultural heritage in relation to “mainstream” American culture. This paper will work to examine the character of the “All-New Ms. Marvel” and how her story relates to ongoing issues of cultural misrepresentation, of unrealistic standards of beauty, and how the medium of comics can be used as a form of popular, semiotic resistance to hegemonic systems of power. First, I will describe the text in some detail along with the reasons why I chose it. Second, I will lay out a theoretical framework based on the works of Chandra Mohanty, Amina Yaquin and John Fiske. Finally, I will integrate the text and the theory in order to defend my pairings and to place Ms. Marvel as a positive role model and as an example of semiotic resistance.

This paper will apply trauma theory, specifically the creation and interpretation of an archive of trauma, to Marvel Entertainment’s X-men comics. My goal for this paper is to situate comics as an important medium for identity relation and construction, and the habituation of personal and cultural trauma relating to minority status(es). I believe that X-men comics in particular offer a rich site for the examination of how representatives of “queer affect,” those who challenge “the norm” through their difference, their partial intelligibility, can create power and community in their abjectness. Concurrently, I will point out how when viewed as an archive X-men comics can create a timeline, a genealogy, of (mis)understanding adversity and oppression and the myriad ways in which affective behavior and the recognition of trauma can be applied to its resistance.
The medium of comics is particularly important due to its unique visual/verbal narrative. “Closing the gutter” (McCloud) between comic book panels, while simultaneously processing both images and text draws the reader into the comic, allowing a deeper resonance with plot and characters as well as an active interpretation of the process, meaning, and impact of events (critical consciousness). Specific iterations of oppression are filtered through the lens of being mutant, making mutant status the master category of oppression. The X-men, Marvel’s primary mutant group/family/community, actively fight against such adversity by uniting various minority identities in the name of mutant intelligibility. I call for the need of more blatantly intersectional characters with fully realized and connecting identities of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and class; but I also posit that this mutational archive of trauma offers semiotic resistance to hegemonic norms by creating alternate futurities and communities in which these norms are challenged and inverted through the fantastic setting(s) of the superhero genre.