Rome. It Wasn’t Built in a Day. Classicists around the world couldn’t be happier. Thanks to a team of archaeologists, architects, and artists, they can now travel back in virtual time to A.D. 320 Rome. Rome Reborn 1.0 is a three-dimensional, real-time digital model of Rome that enables viewers to fly through the city’s streets, into and below the Colosseum, across plazas, and around Imperial Rome’s most famous monuments. While today’s version is something of a ghost town, the project’s organizers intend to add digital Romans and expand the virtual view to reach back into ancient Rome from the “earliest settlement in the late Bronze Age (ca 1000 B.C.) to the beginning of the medieval period.” According to an article in last month’s Smithsonian, “Conceived as a sort of 21st-century academic journal, the idea is that researchers in fields as diverse as architecture, computer programming, literature, engineering and archaeology can collaborate to add layers of information to the model.” Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be able to shake the virtual hand of a young Virgil.
The MFA Story. Since we’re talking about MFA’s this week, I’ll throw this link into the pool. Over at MFA Blog, Lincoln Michel writes, “The most persistent knock on MFA programs I hear is that they all produce the same kind of work. The ‘MFA story,’ as they call it.” Michel then asks, “…What do you all think about aesthetic diversity?” [An aside: One MFAer asks if there are any lit journals that publish non-MFA stories. Lord knows what an MFA story really is, but I do think I understand what is meant by “aesthetic diversity.” Not to toot the KR horn too loud, but you can’t get much more aesthetically diverse than publishing Rebecca Kanner’s “Byblis” next to Janet Peery’s “No Liquor Sold to Indians Past Dark.” Just sayin’.]