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This article explores the technological and cultural history of the Roman aqueduct of Aquincum in Budapest. The only one in the Roman province of Pannonia that was elevated to a continuous line of arches, this aqueduct conveyed water from its source in what is now Budapest's third district to its final destination over three miles to the south, where a Roman military town was located. Apart from the aqueduct's technological and archaeological aspects, this article also examines several cultural practices that it engendered including the ritualistic significance of the springs that fed it, its appearance as a ruin in various medieval documents, the transformation of its last, above-ground pier into a Christian shrine in the nineteenth century, as well as the relocation of two of its piers to give way to the construction of a road junction.

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Used as a predominant covering material in Central and Eastern Europe throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, plaster's malleable characteristics also enabled its efficient utilization as a material for imitating decorative features traditionally made from stone and marble. Instead of looking at plaster as an imitation material, this article proposes studying it as a material archive containing unintentionally preserved traces of the past that may include fragments of advertisements, graffiti, bullet holes, or virtually any inscription in plaster that would otherwise be bound to disappear. Plaster archeology is a mode of looking at plaster less as a conduit of architectural form and more as a material surface involving depth. As a discipline, plaster archeology entails a set of practices that allows one to attend to these surfaces, although not with the intention to save traces of the past from disappearance, but rather towards reconceptualizing plaster as a material in its own right that constantly transforms at the whims of human and climatic forces. By using two buildings located in the heart of Budapest's seventh district as case studies, I will then demonstrate how the plaster archeologist views and examines façades. Finally, through an exploration of plaster's characteristics and history, I argue for plaster archeology as a non-interventive mode of engaging with architectural surfaces.

Fehérváry, Krisztina. 2013. Politics in Color and Concrete: Socialist Materialities and the Middle Class in Hungary. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 288 pp. Illus.

Roters, Katharina. 2014. Hungarian Cubes: Subversive Ornaments in Socialism. Zürich: Park Books. 171 pp. illus.

Molnár, Virág. 2013. Building the State: Architecture, Politics, and State Formation in Postwar Central Europe. London and New York: Routledge. 209 pp. illus.Reviewed by László Munteán, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Preliminary Material /László Munteán and Hans Christian Post -- Psychogeography and Ground Zero /Alexander John Bridger -- Monstrosity by Monstrous Means: Cambodian Memorial Sites /Hans Christian Post -- Monsters Take to the Streets! Monstrous Street-Art as Pedagogy of Resistance to Post-Olympic Regeneration in Hackney Wick? /Rhiannon Firth -- Gendered Heterotopias: Creating Space for Menstrual Blood in Contemporary Art /Ruth Green-Cole -- Mélusine's Iconography: Her Legend of Territorial Expansion and Transformation /Zoila Clark -- The Dark Side of the Sun: The Great Beast, Monstrosity and Solar Narratives /Cavan McLaughlin -- A Plague upon Our Virtual Land /Jad Khairallah -- Gods and Monsters: Religious Inquiry and the Monstrous Classroom /Joshua Paddison.

While the so-called material turn in the humanities and the social sciences has inspired a vibrant discourse on objects, things, and the concept of materiality in general, less attention has been paid to materials, particularly in cultural studies scholarship. With each of its chapters taking a particular material as its point of departure, this volume offers a palette of fresh approaches to materials within the realm of cultural studies. The contributors call for a materials-based perspective on culture, which has become all the more pertinent in times of climate change, energy crisis, conflict, migration, and the lingering coronavirus pandemic.

While the so-called material turn in the humanities and the social sciences has inspired a vibrant discourse on objects, things, and the concept of materiality in general, less attention has been paid to materials, particularly in cultural studies scholarship. With each of its chapters taking a particular material as its point of departure, this volume offers a palette of fresh approaches to materials within the realm of cultural studies. The contributors call for a materials-based perspective on culture, which has become all the more pertinent in times of climate change, energy crisis, conflict, migration, and the lingering coronavirus pandemic.

Memory matters. It matters because memory brings the past into the present, and opens it up to the future. But it also matters literally, because memory is mediated materially. Materiality is the stuff of memory. Meaningful objects that we love (or hate) function not only as aide-mémoire but are integral to memory. Drawing on previous scholarship on the interrelation of memory and materiality, this book applies recent theories of new materialism to explore the material dimension of memory in art and popular culture. The book's underlying premise is twofold: on the one hand, memory is performed, mediated, and stored through the material world that surrounds us; on the other hand, inanimate objects and things also have agency on their own, which affects practices of memory, as well as forgetting. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138203235_oachapter1.pdf Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138203235_oachapter4.pdf Chapter 5 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138203235_oachapter5.pdf