Abstract
Every year, all over the world, hundreds of calls for papers are submitted and hundreds of congresses take place, all of them devoted to some aspect of antiquity. With such an enormous amount of international activity, it is rather difficult, if not impossible, for an individual researcher, or a researching group, to keep in track of every single academic activity related to their specialty, not to say of general academic activities at international scale. It is a very common phenomenon listening to complains from students, young researchers or even consolidated ones about the lack of information on some activities they would have been interested in participating in. The members of this project have checked this experience, even personally, happening in different countries, always talking about classics and antiquity studies. Fasti Congressuum was born by and for students and researchers on Antiquity as an independent project and a tool against this situation.
TopOrigins Of The Project
Every year, all over the world, hundreds of calls for papers are submitted and, consequently, hundreds of congresses take place, all of them devoted to some aspect of antiquity. With such an enormous amount of international activity, it is rather difficult, if not impossible, for an individual researcher, or even for a researching group, to keep in track of every single academic activity related to their specialty, not to say of the general calendar of academic activities at international scale.
Even at a more national or even local level, it is a very common phenomenon listening to complains from students, young researchers or even consolidated ones about the lack of information on some interesting activities they would have been interested in participating. It is known that a congress is not only a proper place to show academic work but also it is the venue where social academic networks take place. So, it is a pity when scholars do not share their job not because they have other meetings to attend or they have academic duties, but also because they do not receive any information about the event.
The members of the present project have checked this recurrent experience, even personally, happening in different countries, always talking about classics and antiquity studies. By one hand researchers have to confront those difficulties, by the other they should be as much international as they can and they must try to share their work not only for researching reasons but also for receiving a better place and foundation in their home universities.
Up to now, the way of learning about Call for papers and Congresses was limited. Researchers have easy access to their own universities’ events via email and panels. In some well know universities such as Oxford or Sorbonne-Pantheon everyone can see posters of Congresses. In those universities, secretaries play an essential role in diffusion receiving information about different events and promoting them through a common space online. Most of the universities do not forget to keep in touch with the most prestigious centers, but most of researchers work in middle and small universities, which are out of this chain of information.
In small and medium universities, only local and semi local information about Congresses reach to researchers. For example, it is quite easy to promote a national Congress between colleagues but external or foreign Congresses seem too far away.
Email is other important way of events’ spreading. Most of researchers try to keep in touch with colleagues via email and some of them try to share information about their own Congresses. This way may be very useful but it requires counting on contacts in order to be in the chain of communication. Young PhD applicants and young professor are not always able to be inside big mail lists easily.
The last way of information is e-mailing group. There are some e-mailing list like Classicists (1997) or Archport (2015), in which anyone can be registered and receive a wide range of different information. A big amount of congresses are diffused this way but there are some problems. The first of them is the saturation of information: a researcher can receive five or six e-mails every day. It can be a real waste of time to read everything and select useful information since those e-mailing list do not filter information. It is common to receive information about exhibitions, new articles or a Call for Papers. Tags are not employed and so information is not selected. In the end, a researcher must waste an amount of time filtering this kind of information.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Suscriptor: Person with an email address who ask for receiving newsletter. It is a kind of follower. Sometimes personal information is required but sometimes it is needed only to provide an email address.
Tag: Social network term. It is a title or definition that it is given to a post. It is used to define or to express any kind of information. Then it can be used to look up information about some topic. In Fasti Congressuum website tags are used to selection and compile different post.
Fasti Congressuum: Latin term created related to Roman calendar. Fasti were those days when working was prohibited in honor of the gods. It is also an international website in which information about Congress and Call for papers is provided.
Seminar: Periodical reunion in at least one University or research institution. It must be organized around a topic and periodically an expert came and pronounced a speech. Every day (it usually be one day per week) only one person speak for the public and a general discussion follow the speech. It last longer than a congress, from one moth to the whole academic year.
Social Networks: It is called to every single tool which was located on the Internet network and has the finality to interact people. The main propose of this world is to connect people immediately and make easier to share information. Every person must have a personal profile with personal information that must be real. From your account it is provided a way to share information such as pictures, videos and documents. Facebook (2004) AU66: The in-text citation "Facebook (2004)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. is the most popular social networks but it is not the only one.
Call for Papers: It is document in which new ideas for a speech in a congress is showed. When a congress is going to be celebrated, the researches in charge ask for ideas related to a topic. A researcher must write an abstract of more o lees 200-300 words and send to the committee in order to be taken into account. The call for papers is the legal document in which those conditions are explained. It usually provided information about the congress such as, city, research institution which organize it, days of the Congress.
Newsletter: It is a periodical email (every week, every month) in which regular information is provided. The main propose of a newsletter is to update information for visitors. It is not needed to go into a website because an email with the last news is received. Usually it is needed to sing up and ask for becoming a subscriber.
Congress: Social encounter in the research world. A congress is the way to present news in academic world. Normally it is related to one topic and before a Call for papers it is celebrated during some days. The main propose of a Congress is to share information between colleagues. That is the reason of choosing a topic in common and to have a process of Call for papers and revision. Usually researches pronounce a speech but also listen to colleagues. Speeches are organized in sessions. The debate part, located at the end of each session is the place of discussing and interchanging ideas. Those ideas can be reflected in a posterior article or help to future investigation. In a congress extern people, such as students or other researchers are admitted just to listen to speeches but also to share their opinion in a more informal way.