Postgraduate research students

My research focuses on social memory and identity of women in the Auld Alliance. I investigate how Memory Theatres are used as spaces designed to display and project selected memories with the aim of influencing the experience and reality of the viewer. Memory Theatres are often created through acts of dominance and resistance and used to portray and preserve specific ideologies, community memories, beliefs, and in the case of the Auld Alliance joint victories and power, as well as cultural exchange. I hope to ‘recreate’ a new ‘Memory Theatre’ for women in the Auld Alliance through the use of film.

To guide me in my research I have these key questions I intend to answer:

As the Franco-Scottish relationship developed, how does the Memory Theatre change throughout the Auld Alliance from the 13^th century to modern day? How are women remembered in the Auld Alliance, and how can we change that?

How can archaeologists stay true to the original representations of ideologies, identities, and memories in their digitization, and does this interfere with the viewers interaction or understanding of historic periods such as the Auld Alliance? How can we be free of our own biases when understanding and recreating Memory Theatres?

In what way can film in archaeology be used to recreate the Memory Theatre and how can this alter one’s understanding and interpretation of the archaeology? What happens when we switch from a patriarchal perspective and create a matriarchal Memory Theatre instead?

Studying spaces as Memory Theatres can help us understand how these sites were meant to be experienced by spectators. Memory Theatres, a term first coined by Susan E. Alcock (2001) in her discussion on the Roman Empire, are built to depict specific narratives, ideologies, and identities to the spectators and create a space where they can become a participant in the events they are exposed to or reminded of. These often involve very physical and sensory experiences. This PhD intends to explore how this is achieved through the digitization of Memory Theatres to determine how the interpretation of monuments or memories differ. Studying these spaces as Memory Theatres will help to identify not only how they were intended to be experienced but also what ideologies and memories are being preserved or forgotten.

Research interests: archaeological theory, material culture, archaeology of religion, memory and social memory studies, gender studies, digital studies in archaeology.

List by: Type | Date

• Dr Gareth Beale
• Dr Nyree Finlay

ScARF Early Career Research Bursary (2023 - article)

University of Glasgow College of Arts Research Support Award (2024)

ScARF Student Bursary (2024)

Center for Scottish & Celtic Studies - Seedcorn Funding (2024)

College of Arts and Humanities Research Support Funding (2025)

Alexandria Parker-Banks, 'Memories and Identities in Architecture and Sculpture: An Analysis of Memory Theatres in Ancient Athens and Jerusalem' Conference Presentation, Scottish Student Archaeology Society Conference Glasgow, 14 February 2021.

Alexandria Parker-Banks, 'Women in the Auld Alliance' Conference Presentation, Scottish Student Archaeology Society Conference Glasgow, 15 February 2024.

Alexandria Parker-Banks, 'Memory and Identity: Women in the Auld Alliance' Workshop Presentation, International Woman's day event: Women in History, 8th March 2025.

Graduate Teaching Assistant:

- Classical Civilisations (level 1)

- Archaeology of Scotland (Level 1)

- Archaeology in the Modern World (Level 1)

- Sutton Trust Summer School

Qualifications:

Archaeology MRes, 2021, University of Glasgow, Thesis title: ‘Memories and Identities in Architecture and Sculpture: An Analysis of Memory Theatres in Ancient Athens and Jerusalem’ 

Archaeology MA, 2019, University of Glasgow, Grade 2:1, Dissertation title: ‘Memory Theatres and Recreating Social Memory in 5th Century BC Athens’

Affiliations:

Website Convener & Committee Member, Scottish Archaeological Forum

Fellow, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland