I think I should add a comment about the title of this blog, 'answers on a postcard'. Nothing to do with actual postcards. It represents the idea that understanding and interpreting the past - our past - which belongs to all of us, should be an inclusive experience. Contributing to it can be as informal as writing your answers on a postcard. Your guess is as good as mine. Everyone is entitled to take part in the process.
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I don't necessarily have very many pressing issues on my mind which must be shared with the entire planet, but it is good practice for me to regularly write down my thoughts and ideas, hence the existence of this blog. I am hoping it will help cure a spot of writer's block which is preventing me from making progress with a certain other project. On the assumption that writing becomes easier the more I do it, a blog seems a good place to start, so I am going to give it bash.
I imagine I will be blogging mostly about archaeology, as that is what I do. I am an archaeologist and museum curator, and as such, one part of my job is to engage our visitors with the museum's archaeology collection. Over the past two days I have been listening to international conference papers on the very subject of communicating archaeology to the public. It is striking how colleagues across the world grapple with the same things as I and everyone else do. How do we make archaeology speak to people? How do we grab people's attention long enough for them to understand why archaeology is fascinating and relevant? And why do we have to sensationalise everything we do in order to sustain public interest and prove that archaeology is not inherently boring? Of course, these questions have vexed the professional community for decades and if we continue to struggle to answer them we are in big trouble. On the subject of communicating archaeology for a wider audience, while I was sat in that roasting hot lecture room the conference organisers' appointed social media peeps - the twitterati - were live tweeting the key points of each paper and any questions from the audience. As a result, words popped up on my Twitter feed split seconds after the chap next to me had uttered them. Remarkable. I'm not used to archaeology at this speed! Granted, the tweeted content was soundbitey and highly selective, but the social media peeps clearly had no problem communicating with their public. Maybe I just need to get with the programme. |
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