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161 books match the query 'Material culture' and 5 start with o

cover of Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture

Objects and Others

Essays on Museums and Material Culture

Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr.

University of Wisconsin Press, 1988

History of Anthropology is a series of annual volumes, inaugurated in 1983, each of which treats an important theme in the history of anthropological inquiry. Objects and Others, the third volume, focuses on a number of questions relating to the history of museums and material culture studies: the interaction of museum arrangement and anthropological theory; the tension between anthropological research and popular education; the contribution of museum ethnography to aesthetic practice; the relationship of humanistic and anthropological culture, and of ethnic artifact and fine art; and, more generally, the representation of culture in material objects. As the first work to cover the development of museum anthropology since the mid-nineteenth century, it will be of great interest and value not only to anthropologist, museologists, and historians of science and the social sciences, but also to those interested in "primitive"  art and its reception in the Western world.
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cover of Objects of Empire: The Ceramic Tradition of the Imperial Inca State

Objects of Empire

The Ceramic Tradition of the Imperial Inca State

Tamara L. Bray

University of Texas Press, 2025

A comparative, empire-wide study of the ceramics associated with the imperial Inca state, theorizing the role of these highly recognizable vessel forms in legitimizing Inca rule and establishing imperial identities.

The beautiful polychrome ceramics of the imperial Inca state have long been noted for their seemingly repetitive nature but little considered beyond this basic observation. The widespread distribution and general uniformity of the Inca pottery, however, hints at its larger importance to the imperial project. Moving beyond the pervasive "seen one, seen 'em all" mentality, Objects of Empire brings to light the variability and rich semiotic content of imperial Inca vessels. Taking a comparative, empire-wide approach, Tamara Bray identifies the parameters and significance of this variability, and defines the core elements of the imperial state style. She then investigates where, when, and why differences and deviations from the perceived norm occur.

This study illuminates the strategies of territorial expansion and political control that lay at the heart of the Inca juggernaut, as well as the role of objects in the calculus of would-be rulers and subjects. Based on a unique and extensive database of imperial Inca pottery developed through detailed study of archaeologically recovered and museum-based collections, Objects of Empire reveals how power and legitimacy were produced and reproduced under the Inca through the material culture of everyday life.

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cover of Other Things

Other Things

Bill Brown

University of Chicago Press, 2015

From the pencil to the puppet to the drone—the humanities and the social sciences continue to ride a wave of interest in material culture and the world of things. How should we understand the force and figure of that wave as it shapes different disciplines? Other Things explores this question by considering a wide assortment of objects—from beach glass to cell phones, sneakers to skyscrapers—that have fascinated a range of writers and artists, including Virginia Woolf, Man Ray, Spike Lee, and Don DeLillo.

The book ranges across the literary, visual, and plastic arts to depict the curious lives of things. Beginning with Achilles’s Shield, then tracking the object/thing distinction as it appears in the work of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Lacan, Bill Brown ultimately focuses on the thingness disclosed by specific literary and artistic works. Combining history and literature, criticism and theory, Other Things provides a new way of understanding the inanimate object world and the place of the human within it, encouraging us to think anew about what we mean by materiality itself.
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cover of Out of Many, One People: The Historical Archaeology of Colonial Jamaica

Out of Many, One People

The Historical Archaeology of Colonial Jamaica

Edited by James A. Delle, Mark W. Hauser, and Douglas W. Armstrong

University of Alabama Press, 2011

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As a source of colonial wealth and a crucible for global culture, Jamaica has had a profound impact on the formation of the modern world system. From the island's economic and military importance to the colonial empires it has hosted and the multitude of ways in which diverse people from varied parts of the world have coexisted in and reacted against systems of inequality, Jamaica has long been a major focus of archaeological studies of the colonial period.
 
This volume assembles for the first time the results of nearly three decades of historical archaeology in Jamaica. Scholars present research on maritime and terrestrial archaeological sites, addressing issues such as: the early Spanish period at Seville la Nueva; the development of the first major British settlement at Port Royal; the complexities of the sugar and coffee plantation system, and the conditions prior to, and following, the abolition of slavery in Jamaica. The everyday life of African Jamaican people is examined by focusing on the development of Jamaica's internal marketing system, consumer behavior among enslaved people, iron-working and ceramic-making traditions, and the development of a sovereign Maroon society at Nanny Town.
 
Out of Many, One People paints a complex and fascinating picture of life in colonial Jamaica, and demonstrates how archaeology has contributed to heritage preservation on the island.
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cover of Oysters in the Land of Cacao: Archaeology, Material Culture, and Societies at Islas de Los Cerros and the Western Chontalpa, Tabasco, Mexico

Oysters in the Land of Cacao

Archaeology, Material Culture, and Societies at Islas de Los Cerros and the Western Chontalpa, Tabasco, Mexico

Bradley E. Ensor

University of Arizona Press, 2020

For decades, the Chontalpa region of Tabasco, Mexico, conjured images of the possible origins of the Itzá, who migrated, conquered, or otherwise influenced much of Mesoamerica. In Oysters in the Land of Cacao, archaeologist Bradley E. Ensor provides an important resource for Mesoamerican Gulf Coast archaeology by offering a new and detailed picture of the coastal sites vital to understanding regional interactions and social dynamics.

This book synthesizes data from multiyear investigations at a coastal site complex in Tabasco—Islas de Los Cerros (ILC)—providing the first modern, systematic descriptions and analyses of material culture that challenge preconceptions while enabling new perspectives on cultural developments from the Formative to Late Classic periods through the lens of regional comparisons and contemporary theoretical trends. Ensor introduces a political ecological understanding of the environment and archaeological features, overturns a misconception that the latter were formative shell middens, provides an alternative pottery classification more appropriate for the materials and for contemporary theory, and introduces new approaches for addressing formation processes and settlement history.

Building on the empirical analyses and discussions of problems in Mesoamerican archaeology, this book contributes new approaches to practice and agency perspectives, holistically integrating intra- and interclass agency, kinship strategies, gender and age dynamics, layered cultural identities, landscapes, social memory, and foodways and feasting. Oysters in the Land of Cacao addresses issues important to coastal archaeology within and beyond Mesoamerica. It delivers an overdue regional synthesis and new observations on settlement patterns, elite power, and political economies.
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