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Week 1. January 29. Introduction: material culture studies and the multidisciplinary approach to things, artifacts, objects.
A case study:
The Automatic Turk.
Week 2. February 5. Materiality: ethnographies of material culture. Archaeological and anthropological approaches to studying objects, things, artifacts. An overview.
Discussion + Response Papers
Social archaeology and material culture studies
- Meskell, Lynn and Robert W. Pruecel; 2004. “file:848314 Knowledges,”in A companion to social archaeology, Lynn Meskell and Rober Preucel. Malden MA: Blackwell, 3-22.
- Hodder, Ian ; 2003. “file:847605 The "social" in Archaeological Theory: An Historical and Contemporary Perspective,” in A Companion to Social Archaeology. Lynn Meskell and Rober Preucel. Malden MA: Blackwell, 23-42.
- Tilley, Christopher; 2001. “file:735807 Ethnography and material culture,” in Handbook of Ethnography. P. Atkinson et. Al. (eds.). London: Sage Pub., 258-272. The book is also in the library.
Things: materiality, agency, animacy, biography
- Miller, Daniel; 2005. “Materiality: an introduction” in Materiality. D. Miller (ed.). Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1-50.
- Knappett, Carl; 2005. “Animacy, agency and personhood,” in Thinking through material culture: an interdisciplinary perspective. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 11-34.
Optional reading:
- Demarrais, Elizabeth; 2004. "file:894111 The materialization of culture," in Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world. E. Demarrais et. al. (eds.). Oxford: McDonald Institute Monographs, 11-22. The book is also on reserve in the library.
Week 3. February 12. Problem of the fetish: towards a theory of powerful things.
Discussion + Response Papers
Introduction to colonialism from a postcolonial perspective:
- Bhabha, Homi; 2004. "file:965441 The other question: stereotype, discrimination and the discourse of colonialism" in The location of culture. London and New York: Routledge, 94-120.
The question of the fetish: colonial West Africa in 16th and 17th c.
- Pietz, William; 1985-88. “ The problem of the fetish”
Representations of the Portuguese on Benin ivories
- Blier, Suzanne Preston; 1993. “file:742810 Imagining otherness in ivory: African portrayals of the Portuguese ca 1492” Art Bulletin 75: 375-396.
Presentation articles:
February 19. No class. "Looooong weekend"
Week 4. February 26. Prehistoric figurines and barbie dolls. Performing objects: a new reading of Neolithic Çatalhöyük anthropomorphic and zoomorphic artifacts.
Discussion +
Response papers
Prehistoric terracotta figurines: deities, individuals or dolls?
Figurine worlds at Çatalhöyük:
- Meskell, Lynn; 2006. “Figurine worlds at Çatalhöyük: materiality, mobility and process,” Unpublished paper delivered at Ethnohistory workshop, University of Pennsylvania (April 6, 2006) (Handout with author’s permission).
Presentation article:
Optional and further reading:
- Knappett, Carl; 2002. "file:738646 Photographs, skeumorphs and marionettes: some thoughts on mind, agency and object," Journal of Material Culture 7/1: 97-117.
Week 5. March 5. Art and agency: Alfred Gell and the anthropological theory of artifacts. Power and performance in Early Mesopotamian material culture. The fear-inducing shield paradigm. Discussion +
Response Papers.
Alfred Gell's anthropological theory of art and agency:
- Gell, Alfred; 1998. Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press.
- All read: Chapter 1. "The problem defined" (1-11), Chapter 2. "The theory of the art nexus" (12-27); Chapter 7. "The distributed person" (96-121).
- Presentations: "Animism and anthropomorphism" 121-133 and "The animation of idols" 133-154.
Materiality, agency and objecthood in Early Mesopotamia
- Bahrani, Zainab; 2002. “file:259922 Performativity and the image: narrative, representation and the Uruk vase,” in Leaving no stones unturned: essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt in honor of Donald P. Hansen. E. Ehrenberg (ed.). Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2002: pages 15-22.
- Wengrow, David; 2004. "file:1109691 Violence into order: materialty and sacred power in ancient Iraq," in Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world. E. Demarrais et. al. (eds.). Oxford: McDonald Institute Monographs, 261-270.
Optional and further reading:
- Rampley, Matthew; 2005. "file:740547 Art history and cultural difference: Alfred Gell's anthropology of art] Art History 28: 524-551.
Week 6. March 12. Social life and cultural biography of things. The question of the dedicated and the deposited object. The Neo-Assyrian apotropaic figures
Discussion + Response Papers
Cultural biography of things: theoretical perspectives
- Kopytoff, Igor; 1986. “file:1225809 The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process,” in The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 64-91.
Biographies and magic in Mesopotamia and Egypt
Presentation article:
Optional and further reading:
- Appadurai, Arjun; 1986. “Introduction: commodities and politics of value,” in The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. Arjun Appadurai (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3-62.
- Gosden, Chris and Ywonne Marshall; 1999. “file:642795 Cultural biography of objects,” World Archaeology 31: 169-178.
- Reiner, Erica; 1995. "Astral Magic in Babylonia" Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., Vol. 85/4: 1-150. Especially read "Apotropaia" 81-96.
Week 7. March 19. Technology: new transdisciplinary perspectives. Material style and facture. A critique of style. Material meanings and meaningful materials.
Discussion
New approaches to technology: art historical, anthropological, archaeological
- Summers, David; 2003. “Facture” in Real Spaces. London: Phaidon Press, 61-86.
Meaningful materials, meaningful techniques: skilled craftsmanship in Mesopotamia
- Winter, Irene J.; 1998. “file:1305563 The affective properties of styles: An inquiry into analytical process and the inscription of meaning in art history ,” in Picturing Science, Producing Art. C.A. Jones and P. Galison (eds.), New York & London: Routledge; 55-77.
- Note: The illustrations of the article is like burnt toast in the pdf. I have posted some of the images on the Discussion page. You could always go to the book also.
- Winter, Irene J.; 2003. " file:1306119 'Surpassing work': mastery of materials and the value of skilled production in ancient Sumer," in Culture through objects: ancient Near Eastern studies in honor of P.R.S. Moorey. Timothy Potts, Michael Roaf, Diana Stein (eds.); Oxford: Griffith Institute, 403-421.
Optional and further reading:
- Shortland, Andrew J. (ed.) 2001. The social context of technological change : Egypt and the Near East, 1650-1550 BC. Oxford : Oxbow.
- Dietler, Michael and Ingrid Herbich; 1998. “Habitus, techniques, style: an integrated approach to the social understanding of material culture and boundaries” in The archaeology of social boundaries. M. T. Stark (ed.); Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 232-263.
March 26. No class. Spring recess.
Week 8. April 2. Divine things: cult practice, cult objects, performing statues.
Discussion
- Frontisi-Ducroux, Francoise; 2001 (1975). "file:1398573 Living statues" in Antiquities (Postwar French Thought Volume III). N. Loraux et. al. eds. New York: The New Press, 164-
- Winter, Irene J.; 1992. file:1399218 “Idols of the King: royal images as the recipients of ritual action in ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of Ritual Studies 6: 13-42.
- Bahrani, Zainab; 2003. “file:1400650 Salmu: representation in the real,” in The graven image: representation in Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 121-148.
Optional and further reading:
Week 9. April 9. Visit to RISD Museum: Figurines from ancient Aegean and the Eastern mediterranean world. Rethinking material worlds: artifacts in museum contexts.
Figurines from the Aegean
- Talalay, Lauren E.; 2005. "file:1401799 The Gendered Sea: iconography, gender, and Mediterranean prehistory," in The archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory. Emma Blake and A. Bernard Knapp (eds.). Malden MA: Blackwell, 130-155.
Rethinking material worlds: artifacts in museum contexts
- Vogel, Susan; 1988. "file:1408562 Introduction to Art/Artifact: African art in anthropology collections" in The anthropology of art: a reader. H Murphy and M Perkins (eds.). Malden MA: Blackwell, 209-218.
- Price, Sally; 1989. "file:1407219 A case in point and afterwords to Primitive Art in Civilized Places" in The anthropology of art: a reader. H Murphy and M Perkins (eds.). Malden MA: Blackwell, 167-185.
Week 10. April 16. Ethnographies of space, place, landscape I: Houses are human: Ethnographies of domestic space and vernacular architecture in Africa and the Near East.
Discussion
- Documentary Video: The architecture of mud (by Caterina Borelli & Pamela Jerome): on the techniques and uses of mud bricks as building materials in Hadhramaut region of southeast Yemen.
- Bourdieu, Pierre; (1971). “file:1402089 The Berber house” in The anthropology of space and place. Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga (eds.). Malden MA: Blackwell, 2003: 131-141.
- Silverstein, Paul A.; 2004. “file:739538 Of rooting and uprooting: Kabyle habitus, domesticity, and structural nostalgia,” Ethnography 5: 553-578.
- Blier, Suzanne Preston; 1983. “file:741655 Houses are human: architectural self-images of Africa’s Tamberma,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 42: 371-382.
Optional and further reading:
- Joyce, Rosemary; 2000. "file:1205242 Heirlooms and Houses: Materiality and Social Memory" in Beyond kinship : social and material reproduction in house societies. Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie (eds.). Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 189-212.
- Donley-Reid, Linda; 1990. "A structuring structure: The Swahili house." in Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: An Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Study. S. Kent (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 114-126.
Week 11. April 23. Ethnographies of space, place, landscape II: Rock reliefs in Anatolia and Assyria- the case of the Source of the Tigris monuments
Discussion
- Tilley, Christopher; 1994. “file:1566811 Space, place, landscape and perception: phenomenological perspectives,” A phenomenology of landscapes: places, paths, monuments. Oxford/Providence: Berg, pp. 7-34.
- Casey, Edward; 2001. “file:1568746 Body, self and landscape: geophilosophical inquiry into the place-world,” in Textures of place: exploring humanist geographies. P.C. Adams et al. (eds.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 403-425. Also: E-book
- Stokkel, Peter J.; 2005. "file:1567702 A New Perspective on Hittite Rock Reliefs" Anatolica 31: 171-188.
- Marcus, Michelle I.; 1995. “file:432942 Geography as visual ideology: landscape, knowledge, and power in Neo-Assyrian art” in Neo-Assyrian geography, Mario Liverani (ed.); Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Roma: Sargon srl, 193-202.
Optional and further reading:
- Blake, Emma; 2004. “Space, spatiality and archaeology,”in A companion to social archaeology, 215-229.
- Low, Setha and Denise Lawrence- Zúñiga; 2003. “Locating culture,” in The anthropology of space and place: locating culture. Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga (eds.). Malden MA: Blackwell, 1-47.
- Shafer, Ann Taylor; 1998. The carving of an empire: Neo-Assyrian monuments on the periphery. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Harvard University.
- Kreppner, Florian Janoscha; 2002. “file:412576 Public space in nature: the case of Neo-Assyrian rock reliefs”, Altorientalische Forschungen 29: 367-383.
Week 12. April 30. Student Presentations of Individual Projects. Final Discussion.
Final paper drafts due.
May 14. Monday, 5 pm: Final papers due.
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Agency, biography and objects” in Handbook of material culture. C. Tilley et. al. (eds.). London: Sage Pub., 74-84. Go to the book.
