Pompeii as Urban Laboratory
John Dobbins, Art
1997 TTI Fellow
Email: jjd5t@virginia.edu
Project website: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pompeii/
Pompeii as Urban Laboratory is a component of the already established and highly regarded Pompeii Forum Project web site, an archaeologically based, collaborative, interdisciplinary research venture.
Using an image database, discrete case studies that illustrate specific problems and methodologies, and innovative pedagogical applications of video, the Pompeii as Urban Laboratory project is designed to take students in an undergraduate course (ARTH 214) further in their understanding of the research process than is possible in a 50-minute lecture format. Instead of just being witnesses to the discovery of others, the students themselves are asked to participate in the research and discovery process.
Professor Dobbins goal is to engage students in a serious consideration of the nature of urbanism and the process of dynamic urban change by using Pompeii and the enduring paradigms it presents as a case study. The purpose is not only to learn specifics about Pompeii, but also to think about and strive to understand the nature of the city in abstract terms.