URECA - Alexa Mpazicos

Alexa Mpazicos, a senior in art history, was selected to present a paper she had written for a class as a poster presentation for the URECA Celebration of Undergraduate Research research on May 2nd, 2023. Alexa wrote her spectacular paper for the ARH 325 course on Ancient Near Eastern Art and Architecture in the Fall of 2022. A return to the paper and its subsequent reconsideration successfully presented as a poster argued that this short lived dynasty of the third millennium BC from ancient Mesopotamia, both used art to legitimize their conquest of southern Mesopotamia, but also set the stage for all subsequent rulers to emulate what the great leader Naram Sin introduced. This propaganda tool highlighted specificity of battles, but the military and political propaganda was emulated by the Assyrian kings who followed him over almost two millennia later. Her revised paper titled ” The Akkadian Propaganda Machine: How Subversive Messaging Legitimized a Conquest” created a fabulous visual presentation of her work, she used her stellar presentation style to answer questions from visitors to her station and rather brilliantly also allowed her audience to get a copy of her paper by creating a QR Code for it on her poster for all interested parties!