Download Free Material Culture Matters Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Material Culture Matters and write the review.

The field of material culture, while historically well established, has recently enjoyed something of a renaissance. Methods once dominated by Marxist- and commodity-oriented analyses and by the study of objects as symbols are giving way to a more ethnographic approach to artifacts. This orientation is the cornerstone of the essays presented in Material Cultures. A collection of case studies which move from the domestic sphere to the global arena, the volume includes examinations of the soundscape produced by home radios, catalog shopping, the role of paper in the workplace, and the relationship between the production and consumption of Coca-Cola in Trinidad. The diversity of the essays is mediated by their common commitment to ethnography with a material focus. Rather than examine objects as mirages of media or language, Material Cultures emphasizes how the study of objects not only contributes to an understanding of artifacts but is also an effective means for studying social values and contradictions.
Dr. Seymour Gitin is completing his tenure as Director and Dorot Professor at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. Much of his long career has been spent helping young scholars expand their contacts and hone their skills. This volume is a collection of articles by some of the many developing scholars and Albright fellows with whom Sy has shared his time and knowledge. Their appreciation shows in the quality of their articles, the breadth of their interests, and their dedication to Sy Gitin. The articles range from a discussion of tomb robbing in Palestinian areas, to a geographical analysis of the Shephelah region, to Islamic historical texts, to Israelite cult stands, to Middle Bronze Age burials. In addition, there are several articles by former members of the Tel Miqne–Ekron staff that draw on the finds from that site and further demonstrate Sy’s willingness to mentor and to share the publication of the site’s rich trove of materials. This book not only honors Dr. Gitin by the willingness of fellows to contribute to the volume; it also expands our knowledge base of the southern Levant and shows that “Material Culture Matters.”
Prominent scholars and journalists ponder the question of why, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world is more divided than ever between the rich and the poor, between those living in freedom and those under oppression.
In its multidisciplinary approach and wide-ranging contributions, the book looks at trench art and postcards through museum collections to prosthetic limbs, and examines the First World War and its significance through the things it left behind.
First Published in 2010. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Introduction -- The cultural commons -- Culture as moral beliefs -- Culture as instrument -- The rise of flourishing societies -- The free market democracy dilemma -- The fall of flourishing societies -- Family, religion, government, and civilization -- Conclusion
To be civilized involves, among other things, making, using, and buying objects. Although speculation on the significance of objects often tends to be casual, there are professionals--anthropologists, historians, semioticians, Marxists, sociologists, and psychologists--who analyze material culture in a systematic way and attempt to elicit from it reliable information about people, societies, and cultures. One reason that analyzing objects has been problematical for scholars is the lack of a sound methodology governing multidisciplinary research. Reading Matter addresses this problem by defining a comprehensive set of methodological approaches that can be used to analyze and interpret material culture and relate it to personality and society.Berger offers discussions of the main concepts found in semiotic, historical, anthropological, psychoanalytic, Marxist, and sociological analysis. He provides practical descriptions of the working methods of each discipline and demarcates their special areas of investigation. Berger's lively discussions include a wealth of illustrative examples that help to clarify the complex and often difficult theories that underlie interpretations of material culture. In the second part of his analysis, Berger uses these disciplines to investigate one subject--fashion and an important aspect of fashion, blue jeans, and what the author calls the denimization phenomenon. Here he shows how different methods of reading material culture end up with different perspectives on things--even when they are dealing with the same topic.The author's focus is on the material culture of post-literate societies and cultures, both contemporary and historical. This comparative approach enables the reader to trace the evolution of objects from past to present or to see how American artifacts spread to different cultures, acquiring a wholly new meaning in the process. Reading Matter is an important contribution to the study of popula
How and why people develop, maintain, and change cultural boundaries through time are central issues in the social and behavioral sciences in generaland anthropological archaeology in particular. What factors influence people to imitate or deviate from the behaviors of other group members? How are social group boundaries produced, perpetuated, and altered by the cumulative outcomeof these decisions? Answering these questions is fundamental to understanding cultural persistence and change. The chapters included in this stimulating, multifaceted book address these questions. Working in several subdisciplines, contributors report on research in the areas of cultural boundaries, cultural transmission, and the socially organized nature of learning. Boundaries are found not only within and between the societies in these studies but also within and between the communities of scholars who study them. To break down these boundaries, this volume includes scholars who use multiple theoretical perspectives, including practice theory and evolutionary traditions, which are sometimes complementary and occasionally clashing. Geographic coverage ranges from the indigenous Americas to Africa, the Near East, and South Asia, and the time frame extends from the prehistoric or precontact to colonial periods and up to the ethnographic present. Contributors include leading scholars from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Together, they employ archaeological, ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological,experimental, and simulation data to link micro-scale processes of cultural transmission to macro-scale processes of social group boundary formation, continuity, and change.
A collection of essays that examine early American cultural, political, and social history through a material lens, exploring the meanings of objects ranging from artworks and domestic furnishings to Penn's Treaty Tree.