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13 Things 2009

13 Things 2008


Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

Search Brown

 

 

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]

Here is a sample of some of the cover stories from Fall 2008. Stories that I found particularly interesting or that proved to be exceptions to the Providence Phoenix cover story rule (namely a focus on local interest) are accompanied by blurbs.

Disclaimer: You may notice that there is a gap in this archive. This is because I never picked up the Phoenix for the week of November 7 - 13. Rather than ignoring this glitch with the hopes that you wouldn't pick up on it, I've decided to draw attention to my archive's incompleteness and what it tells us about the nature of the print newspaper as an artifact.

When I realized that I was missing a particular November issue, I went looking for it in newsstands. However, I soon confirmed my initial fear that a month-old issue of the Phoenix would be hard to come by. While Phoenix newsstands serve as mini archeological dig sites, with the latest issue stacked on top of crumpled issues from the previous week, the timeline seldom extends back more than two weeks. This is because after a few weeks of circulation, after being passed from hand to hand and in many cases traveling a considerable distance through the distribution radius, an issue of the Phoenix is degraded beyond the point of practical use/readability. Sections are removed and cast aside, and the paper is eventually thrown away, recycled, or degraded by the natural elements. While an accurate archive of the Providence Phoenix exists going back 30 years, it exists in the form of microfilm or online databases. There is no attempt made to preserve the Phoenix's materiality. Until a recent issue of the Phoenix reappears in an historical archive, it slips out of the landscape of its community and into a limbo-like state of inaccessibility.

October

November

December

*All images have been scanned from my personal copies of the newspapers


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