Time and Material Culture

Time and Material Culture PDF Author: Julie Deschepper
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040092209
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
This edited volume offers an original exploration into the ways in which Soviet culture and experience of time were unique, examining the temporalities expressed in the world of socialist things: from the objects of everyday life to urban architecture. Grounding the analysis of Soviet temporalities in their material incarnations not only lends concreteness to discussions of temporal culture, but also draws out ways in which the specificities of Soviet things—and their planning, design, manufacture, and consumption—mediated and produced particular ways of experiencing, perceiving, and representing time. As such, Time and Material Culture turns a new page in the study of the temporal and material culture of Soviet socialism and, in doing so, contributes to broader debates on the changing experiences of time in the global twentieth century. The book integrates interdisciplinary perspectives as well as regional approaches sensitive to the multinational nature of the Soviet project. Time and Material Culture will be useful to academics, upper-level undergraduates, and graduate students interested in twentieth-century cultures of time.

The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture

The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture PDF Author: Ivan Gaskell
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199341761
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 679

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Book Description
Most historians rely principally on written sources. Yet there are other traces of the past available to historians: the material things that people have chosen, made, and used. This book examines how material culture can enhance historians' understanding of the past, both worldwide and across time. Deploying material culture to discover the pasts of constituencies who have left few traces in written record, the authors present familiar historical problems in new ways. This volume offers case studies arranged thematically in six sections that address the relationship of history and material culture to cognition, technology, the symbolic, social distinction, and memory.

Time and Material Culture

Time and Material Culture PDF Author: Julie Deschepper
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040092209
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Get Book Here

Book Description
This edited volume offers an original exploration into the ways in which Soviet culture and experience of time were unique, examining the temporalities expressed in the world of socialist things: from the objects of everyday life to urban architecture. Grounding the analysis of Soviet temporalities in their material incarnations not only lends concreteness to discussions of temporal culture, but also draws out ways in which the specificities of Soviet things—and their planning, design, manufacture, and consumption—mediated and produced particular ways of experiencing, perceiving, and representing time. As such, Time and Material Culture turns a new page in the study of the temporal and material culture of Soviet socialism and, in doing so, contributes to broader debates on the changing experiences of time in the global twentieth century. The book integrates interdisciplinary perspectives as well as regional approaches sensitive to the multinational nature of the Soviet project. Time and Material Culture will be useful to academics, upper-level undergraduates, and graduate students interested in twentieth-century cultures of time.

Mobility, Meaning and Transformations of Things

Mobility, Meaning and Transformations of Things PDF Author: Hans Peter Hahn
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782970843
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Things travel around the globe: they are shipped as mass consumer goods, or transported as souvenirs or gifts. There are infinite ways for things to be mobile, not only in the era of globalisation but since the beginning of time, as the earliest traces of long distance trading show. This book investigates the mobility of things from archaeological and anthropological perspectives. Material Objects are characterised by temporal continuity, embodying a prior existence with lingering effects. Yet the material continuity disguises the transformations they may undergo, which only become evident upon closer examination. Objects are in perpetual flux, leaving visible traces of their age, usage, and previous life. While travelling through time, objects also circulate through space, and their spatial mobility alters their meaning and use with respect to new cultural horizons. As objects transform through time and space, so does the value attributed to them. Mapping out itineraries of value in the realm of the material, allows us to grasp the nature of a given social formation through the shape and meaning taken on by its valued 'stuff'. It also provides insights into the nature of materiality, through the value ascribed to objects at a given point in time and space. This edited volume brings together studies of material culture, materiality and value, with regard to the mobility of objects, with the aim of tracing the ways in which societies constitute their valued objects and how the realm of the material reflects upon society.

Time, Consumption and Everyday Life

Time, Consumption and Everyday Life PDF Author: Elizabeth Shove
Publisher: Berg
ISBN: 1847885934
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Has material civilization spun out of control, becoming too fast for our own well-being and that of the planet? This book confronts these anxieties and examines the changing rhythms and temporal organization of everyday life. How do people handle hurriedness, burn-out and stress? Are slower forms of consumption viable? This volume brings together international experts from geography, sociology, history, anthropology and philosophy. In case studies covering the United States, Asia and Europe, contributors follow routines and rhythms, their emotional and political dynamics and show how they are anchored in material culture and everyday practice. Running themes of the book are questions of coordination and disruption; cycles and seasons; and the interplay between power and freedom, and between material and natural forces. The result is a volume that brings studies of practice, temporality and material culture together to open up a new intellectual agenda.

Understanding Material Culture

Understanding Material Culture PDF Author: Ian Woodward
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 144623956X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
"In his interdisciplinary review of material culture, Ian Woodward goes beyond synthesis to offer a theoretically innovative reconstruction of the field. It is filled with gems of conceptual insight and empirical discovery. A wonderful book." - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University "A well-grounded and accessible survey of the burgeoning field of material culture studies for students in sociology and consumption studies. While situating the field within the history of intellectual thought in the broader social sciences, it offers detailed and accessible case studies. These are supplemented by very useful directions for further in-depth reading, making it an excellent undergraduate course companion." - Victor Buchli, University College London Why are i-pods and mobile phones fashion accessories? Why do people spend thousands remodelling their perfectly functional kitchen? Why do people crave shoes or handbags? Is our desire for objects unhealthy, or irrational? Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. Surveying the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption, and symbolization, this book: introduces the key concepts and approaches in the study of objects and their meanings presents the full sweep of core theory - from Marxist and critical approaches to structuralism and semiotics shows how and why people use objects to perform identity, achieve social status, and narrativize life experiences analyzes everyday domains in which objects are important shows why studying material culture is necessary for understanding the social. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, consumer behaviour studies, design and fashion studies.

Cultural Transmission and Material Culture

Cultural Transmission and Material Culture PDF Author: Miriam T. Stark
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816526758
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
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.

History and Material Culture

History and Material Culture PDF Author: Karen Harvey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351678116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Sources are the raw material of History, but whereas the written word has traditionally been seen as the principal source, historians now recognize the value of sources beyond text. In this new edition of History and Material Culture, contributors consider a range of objects – from an eighteenth-century bed curtain to a twenty-first-century shopping trolley – which can help historians develop new interpretations and new knowledge about the past. Containing two new chapters on healing objects in East Africa and the shopping trolley in the social world, this book examines a variety of material sources from around the globe and across centuries to assess how such sources can be used to study the distant and the recent past. In a revised introduction, Karen Harvey discusses some of the principal issues raised when historians use material culture, particularly in the context of 'the material turn', and suggests some initial steps for those unfamiliar with these kinds of sources. While the sources are discussed from interdisciplinary perspectives, the emphasis of the book is on what historians stand to gain from using material culture, as well as what historians have to offer the broader study of material culture. Clearly written and accessible, this book is the ideal introduction to the opportunities and challenges of researching material culture, and is essential reading for all students of historical theory and method.

Wild Things

Wild Things PDF Author: Judy Attfield
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
ISBN: 1350070718
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
What do things mean? What does the life of everyday objects reveal about people and their material worlds? Has the quest for 'the real thing' become so important because the high-tech world of total virtuality threatens to engulf us? This pioneering book bridges design theory and anthropology to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. The act of consumption is only the starting point of object's “lives”. Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings and associations that reflect and assert who we are. Defining designed things as “things with attitude” differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary aretefacts that are too easily taken for granted. Through case studies ranging from reproduction furniture to fashion and textiles to 'clutter', the author traces the connection between objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity. Beyond this, she shows the materiality of the everyday in terms of space, time and the body and suggests a transition with the passing of time from embodiment to disembodiment.

Memory and Material Culture

Memory and Material Culture PDF Author: Andrew Jones
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139465600
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
We take for granted the survival into the present of artifacts from the past. Indeed the discipline of archaeology would be impossible without the survival of such artifacts. What is the implication of the durability or ephemerality of past material culture for the reproduction of societies in the past? In this book, Andrew Jones argues that the material world offers a vital framework for the formation of collective memory. He uses the topic of memory to critique the treatment of artifacts as symbols by interpretative archaeologists and artifacts as units of information (or memes) by behavioral archaeologists, instead arguing for a treatment of artifacts as forms of mnemonic trace that have an impact on the senses. Using detailed case studies from prehistoric Europe, he further argues that archaeologists can study the relationship between mnemonic traces in the form of networks of reference in artifactual and architectural forms.

History and Material Culture

History and Material Culture PDF Author: Karen Harvey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135690952
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Sources are the raw material of history, but where the written word has traditionally been seen as the principal source, today historians are increasingly recognizing the value of sources beyond text. In History and Material Culture, Karen Harvey embarks upon a discussion about material culture – considering objects, often those found surrounding us in day to day life, as sources, which can help historians develop new interpretations and new knowledge about the past. Across ten chapters, different historians look at a variety of material sources from around the globe and across centuries to assess how such sources can be used to study history. While the sources are discussed from ‘interdisciplinary’ perspectives, each contributor examines how material culture can be approached from an historical viewpoint, and each chapter addresses its theme or approach in a way accessible to readers without expertise in the area. In her introduction, Karen Harvey discusses some of the key issues raised when historians use material culture, and suggests some basic steps for those new to these kinds of sources. Opening up the discipline of history to new approaches, and introducing those working in other disciplines to historical approaches, this book is the ideal introduction to the opportunities and challenges of researching material culture.