Welcome. This is an experimental web site describing the work of one panel at the July 1998 conference in Rome, Italy, sponsored by the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association. A program for the entire conference, and related information, are available at the web site of the NCA.
Participants:
Chair: Tom Benson, Pennsylvania State University, USA.
- Mario Carpo, École d'Architecture de Saint-Étienne, France. "The Rhetoric of the Orders"
- Sarah Benson, Cornell University, USA. "Mechanical Tourism: The Case of the Capitoline Hill"
- Guido Michelone, Università Cattolica di Milano, Italy. "The Colosseum and the Cinema"
- Mark M. Schimmenti, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. "The Via dei Fori Imperiali and the Fascists."
Organizers: Tom Benson (Penn State) and Sarah Benson (Cornell University)
Abstract: Roman architecture from what we now call classical times until the present has been constructed to achieve rhetorical effects. The planning of these sites and their appeal to citizens, tourists, and pilgrims have been influenced by technologies of communication and, since the Renaissance, by the mass media--printing and printed images, photography, film, video, and the Internet. These dimensions of the sites are of potential interest to communication scholars. This panel will conduct a two-hour walking tour of several sites located at the heart of classical Rome, from Piazza Venezia, over the Capitoline Hill, through the Forum, and ending at the Colosseum, considering them from a variety of communication perspectives. In the spirit of internationalism and technology that is the focus of the conference and the theme of this panel, we will follow up by posting a web site summarizing and illustrating the tour. (Virtual tourists may find a link to the panel web site at http://www.personal.psu.edu/t3b).
Members of the Rome conference are invited to correspond with this page--send us your own commentary on communication in your travel to Rome, study resources, relevant web links, or photographs. If there is sufficient interest, we will establish a listserv for followup discussions.
Roman signs, icons, and motifs
Piazza Venezia
The Capitoline Hill
The Forum
The Colosseum
Comments
Panoramic views of Rome from the Library of Congress Collection
NERONE The Insider's Guide to Rome
MIRABILIA URBIS 2000 - Campidoglio (in Italian)
VROMA, a web resource for classical studies
sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities; those who are attending
the NCA/ICA walking tour of Roman tourist sites might especially like to consult
VROMA's collection of materials for the study of the Roman
Forum.
Roman Forum
at ThinkQuest
Piazza Venezia - description on the Roma Interactive web site, including pictures and bus directions.
Colosseum - a web site developed by Professor James Higginbotham for his course Archaeology 102 at Bowdoin College.
On June 19, 1998, all Italian phone numbers are changing. A zero will now be permanently fixed to each city prefix. Thus if one wanted to call the Vatican switchboard from the US the number used to be 011 39 6 69 82. Now you would have to call 011 39 06 69 82 [39=Italy, 06=Rome 6982=local number]. The same things goes for all local calls within a city. One can no longer dial just 69 82 for the Vatican but must attach the entire prefix 06. Thus: 06 69 82 in this case.
contact:
Thomas W. Benson Sparks Professor of Rhetoric Department of Speech Communication Penn State University 227 Sparks Building University Park, PA 16802 t3b@psu.edu
back to Tom Benson home page