Cultural Tourism and Community Economic Development

This study examines the relationship between cultural tourism and economic development. Two specific objectives are identified: first, to describe variations in expenditures of cultural tourists in nine small communities of southern Ontario; and, second, to identify factors responsible for the observed variations. Data collected in a visitor survey reveal that cultural tourists spend, on average, nearly $200,000 annually within each study site. Variations in total audience expenditure are found to be a result of differences in annual attendance and average visitor expenditures, as influenced by community population and economic base, theater revenue, visitor motivations, and income levels. It is concluded, therefore, that in addition to enhancing cultural wellbeing, professional theater companies act as a catalyst for tourism and provide financial benefits for a community: one option to be considered to further the process of economic development within a locale.     

Tell formation processes as indicated from geoarchaeological and geochemical investigations at Xeropolis,Euboea, Greece

Xeropolis is a tell site on the island of Euboea, Greece just to the east of the village of Lefkandi, and was occupied from the Early Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Excavations in recent years have provided an opportunity to investigate site formation processes using geoarchaeological and geochemical techniques. Sediments derived from the tell on the southern side have been lost by coastal erosion whilst those on the north mantle the flanking slope. Of particular interest is a homogeneous and unstratified deposit of over 2 m which overlies the archaeology near the southern perimeter of the summit area. The soil structure as evident in thin sections indicates a high degree of bioturbation, probably stimulated by recent manuring and cultivation. The implication is that tillage erosion has had a major impact on the morphology as well as on the surface soils of the tell. Despite such reworking and redeposition of near surface materials, it is still possible from multi-element analysis to identify the geochemical distinctiveness of six archaeological contexts (pit, house, plaster floor, alley, road and yard); pits and floors have high loadings of all elements except Pb; in contrast pits and floors have the lowest elemental concentrations.     

Grace Mildmay and the painted glass window in the Mildmay chapel at St Leonard’s church,Apethorpe, Northamptonshire

?????The 1621 painted glass window in the Mildmay chapel of St Leonard’s church, Apethorpe, Northamptonshire, belongs to the revival of figurative glass in churches during the first half of the seventeenth century. Its four subjects, the Fall of Adam and Eve, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, and the Last Judgement, express orthodox reformed belief in original sin and salvation only through faith in Christ’s saving grace. But the window’s design and unusual iconographic details are atypical of the period. Theme and imagery closely parallel sixteenth-century bible illustrations and both can be understood in relation to the volume of meditations compiled over her lifetime by Grace, Lady Mildmay, who was the patron of the chapel. The paper argues for her close involvement in the evolution of the imagery; the window can be seen as a visual equivalent of her meditations, and expresses her preoccupation with sinfulness, redemption, resurrection, and the afterlife.     

Multi-element soil analysis: an assessment of its potential as an aid to archaeological interpretation

Multi-element soil analysis is now an established technique in archaeology. It has been used to locate archaeological sites and define the extent of human activity beyond the structural remains, and to aid interpretation of space use in and around archaeological remains. This study aimed to evaluate the consistency of these soil element signatures between sites and hence their potential usefulness in archaeological studies. Known contexts on abandoned farms across the UK were sampled to test the relationships between element concentrations and known functional area and to assess inter-site variability. The results clearly show that there are significant differences in the soil chemistry of contrasting functional areas, particularly for Ba, Ca, P, Zn, Cu, Sr and Pb. Despite significant site specific effects, which appear to reflect individual anthropogenic practices rather than geological influences, there is sufficient similarity in the pattern of element enhancement to allow reliable interpretation of former function using discriminant models. Relating these enhancements to precise soil inputs, however, is more problematic because many important soil inputs do not contain distinct element fingerprints and because there is mixing of materials within the soil. There is also a suggestion that charcoal and bone play an important role in both the loading and post-depositional retention of Ca, Sr, P, Zn, and Cu and thus may be significant in the formation of soil element concentration patterns.     

Marina Carr’s Hecuba: agency,anger and correcting Euripides

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on Marina Carr’s 2015 adaptation of Hecuba for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Hecuba sees Carr return to a fascination with Greek tragedy, difficult female characters and reimagining foundational myths. Of all Euripides’ plays Hecuba has rarely been popular, yet the themes Carr prises open – of violence, desire, gendered experience and the politics of perspective – are acutely topical. Indeed, Hecuba seemed to anticipate the frustrations that erupted on 28 October 2015 in response to the Abbey Theatre’s “Waking the Nation” programme. Drawing on twentieth and twenty-first century debates around the politics of tragic form, Roland Barthes theorising of myth, and the tradition of Greek adaptation in modern Irish drama, this paper examines how Hecuba reorients its sources. It goes on to assess the outcomes of these reorientations in order to problematise the critical predisposition to find an inevitably progressive poetics/politics in her engagement with tragic myths.     

CULTURAL AND SOCIAL DISCONNECTION IN THE CONTEXT OF A CHANGED PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

The context of the study was provided by the enforced relocation of an old coal mining community in the UK and describes the changes that were experienced by relocatees. The study is longitudinal in design over a six year period and this article is based on the qualitative part of the study. The old village had consisted of five straight rows of terraced houses whereas the new village was built in a curvilinear design with additional housing, occupying a much larger space. Reduced visual access to others not only diminished a sense of connectedness but also restricted an information flow which had been part of the functioning of the previous community, leaving indigenous participants with a sense of isolation. This unwanted isolation diluted the previous collective identity and weakened social support. In addition, an abrupt change in the community's socio‐cultural patterns occurred and previously learned privacy mechanisms were found to be inappropriate in the new setting. New values, priorities, lifestyles and overt materialism were evident and the data suggest that the earlier mostly collective functioning of the community had been replaced by individual functioning. It is proposed that spatial aspects provide constraints and opportunities for different behaviour patterns, highlighting the crucial importance of the physical environment and illustrating the essentially dynamic relationship between person, group and place.