Material Culture Theory Flashcards

1
Q

What does Fernand Braudel have to say about the material world ?

A

‘Material life is made up of people and things’

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2
Q

What Is Henry Glassie’s main argument?

A

That by focousing on words whether written or spoken we are omitting whole spheres of experience that are cumbersome you framed in language but gracefully snapped into artefacts . . . We miss the wordless experience of all people

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3
Q

Who argues that through just looking at text and words we omit whole spheres of experience from study. Meaning we miss the wordless experience of all people

A

Henry Glassie

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4
Q

Material culture expresses and mediates human and social relationships

A

Ann smart

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5
Q

What does Ann smart say about material culture

A

That material culture expresses and mediates human and social relationships.

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6
Q

‘No one denies the importance of a thing, but learning form them requires rather more attention than reading texts … The grammar of things is related to, but more complex and difficult to decipher than the grammar of words’

A

David Kingery

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7
Q

What does david Kingery have to say about deciphering objects

A

No one Denys things importance. Learning from them is more difficult than learning from texts. The grammar of things is mor difficult to decipher

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8
Q

What text did Paula findlen write ?

A

Objects in motion

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9
Q

Who wrote article ‘objects in motion’

A

Paula findlen

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10
Q

What are Paula findlen main arguments in ‘objects in motion’

A
  • that people and identities are constructed through things
  • that objects move in and out of desirability throughout time, which means that they appear and disappear throughout the historical record
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11
Q

Findlen thing quote

A

‘Things help us to understand the divisions of this world’

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12
Q

Findlen system quote

A

‘Every object takes its place in a system of use and meaning in which value is constantly being renegotiated’

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13
Q

Findlen identity quite

A

‘People construct identities through things’

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14
Q

What is written by Karen Harvey

A

Introduction to ‘history and material culture’

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15
Q

Who’s article is the introduction to ‘history and material culture’

A

Karen Harvey

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16
Q

To Karen Harvey what are objects

A
  • Objects are autonomous and active rather than just reflective . –They do not just aquire cultural meanings
  • through their very materiality they have a role to play in creating and shaping experiences identities and relationships
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17
Q

How does Karen Harvey argue that knowing flaws helps us study material culture

A

By being wise to concerns at the core of the academic discipline it allows us to be self reflective about the questions we are asking

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18
Q

What article by Tara hamling and Catherine Richardson did we study

A

Introduction to everyday objects

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19
Q

Who wrote introduction to everyday objects

A

Tara hamiling and Catherine Richardson

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20
Q

Hamilng and Richardson’s argument about relation

A

‘Objects need to be considered in relation to their original historical content as part of activities’

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21
Q

What does Daniel Miller argue about noticing objects

A

The less we are aware of objects the more powerfully they can determine our expectations calling this the humility of things

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22
Q

What is the ‘humility of things’

A

Objects are important precisely because we do not notice them .. Daniel Miller .. This means that important objects may be hidden from the historical record precisely because people did not notice them.

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23
Q

What are this issues that Lena Orlin highlight in respect to the interpretation of objects

A

We read past objects through the eyes of our culture, which in turn has been conditioned through victorian sentimentality .. Therefore cultural constructions skew our interpretation of the past

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24
Q

Who wrote ‘the object’

A

Adrienne Hood

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25
Q

What article did Adrienne Hood write

A

‘The object’

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26
Q

What does hood have to say about the power of objects

A

‘The power of objects opens up new avenues of historical thinking’

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27
Q

What does hood ask us to question when studying objects

A

Why have they been collected .. Why was it treasured… No neutral objects ‘it is imperative for researchers to interrogate the representativeness of the artefacts they use as they would without texts’

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28
Q

Who wrote ‘it is imperative for researchers to interrogate the representativeness of the artefacts they use as they would without texts’

A

Adrienne hood

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29
Q

Who adapted T.Hill’s concept of proximities

A

Beverly Gordon

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30
Q

What are Beverly Gordon’s proximities

A
  • intimate zone (6-8inches)
  • personal zone (1.5 - 4 feet)
  • social zone (4-12 feet)
  • public zone (12 feet to end of visual range)
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31
Q

What does Katherine Grier argue

A

That through household furnishings victorian Americans participated in the construction of a middle class identity through an expanding world of consumer goods (could apply this theory to the Tudor period)

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32
Q

What does christopher Tilley argue about material culture studies

A

That material culture is part of human culture in genral … Persons make and use things and the things make and use persons

33
Q

Who wrote description and evidence

A

Ludmilla Jordanova

34
Q

Jordanovas problems with description

A

All up to interpretation
Depends on variety of things .. Ability of described and cultural conceptions of interpreter (could use this to critique things such as the statute of abuses … Interpretation + cultural construct makes things difficult for us to comprehend properly)

35
Q

‘Objects are historically specific to specific social heirachies’

A

Ludmilla jorndanova

36
Q

Jordanova argues what about things

A

That things cannot speak
Objects require contextualisation
If there is any agency it lies less in things themselves than in people that produce use and explain them

37
Q

Catherine Richardson wrote what

A

‘Shakespeare and material culture’

38
Q

Who wrote ‘Shakespeare and material culture’

A

Chattering Richardson

39
Q

What does diachronic approach mean

A

Concerned with the way in which something has moved through time

40
Q

What does synchronic mean

A

Concerned with something at a specific point in time

41
Q

To Richardson what are objects ?

A

‘Objects then are embodiments of practices which are recoverable through close attention to their material form’

42
Q

What does Richardson argue about clothing

A

‘Clothing is a key player in the construction of early modern identity and stage practice’

43
Q

What do Jonathan Gil Harris write

A

‘Shakespeare’s hair’

44
Q

Who wrote Shakespeare’s hair

A

Jonathan Gil Harris

45
Q

Who argues that material objects participate in both that synchronic and diachronic

A

Jonathan Gil Harris

46
Q

How dis Gil Harris say one can access significance of object

A

In order to read the significance of any object it becomes nessecary to trace its cultural biography … Link to Arjuna appadurai argument

47
Q

What is Arjun Appadurai’s argument about objects

A

He argues tha objects poses life histories or careers that invest the within social significance and cultural value

48
Q

What did igor kopytoff write ?

A

The cultural biography of things

49
Q

Who wrote the cultural biography of things in Arjun Appadurai’s ‘the social life of things’

A

Igor Kopytoff

50
Q

What is kopytoffs main argument

A

That things have biographies, and that they can change meaning and value multiple time throughout their life

51
Q

What does Kopytoff say about the production of commodities

A

That it is a cultural and cognitive process
That the same things may be treated as a comodity at one time and not at another
That at the same time a thing may be seen as a comodity by one person but not by another

52
Q

What article did we study be Stephen Kelly

A

‘In the sight of an old pair of shoes’

53
Q

Who wrote ‘in the sight of an old pair of shoes’

A

Stephen kelly

54
Q

Stephen Kelly quote on words

A

‘Words and things have long been at war, it is a war of supremacy’

55
Q

What does Kelly argue historians have to be careful with when using objects

A

Be aware that we can only access the means by which things are accommodated into past conceptualisations of social life, the things themselves remain mute.

56
Q

Who said ‘material life is made up of people and things’

A

Fernand Braudel

57
Q

What does leora Ausslander argue the importance of

A

Material culture and the study of objects, whether unique, handmade or mass produced

58
Q

What are ausslanders three major reasons as to why material culture should be studied

A
  • people have always used all five of their senses, and peoples relation to language is not the same as their relation to things
  • objects are not on,y the product of history, they are also active agents within it
  • for most of human history written language has not been the major form of expressions
59
Q

What does Ausslander argue are some of the challenges that need to be faced when studying material culture

A
  • things are not just things, they have diffrent meanings to diffrent people
  • people attach meanigs to things in diffent ways eg. Babies to toys . People to posessions of deceased loved one
  • methodological problems whether you want to focous on material side , eg, age, substance and structure of the object, or more focoused on the culture and meanings
60
Q

Ausslander things quote

A

“without things our understanding of people is impoverished”

61
Q

Ausslander material culture quote

A

“Material culture is simply another vital source of historical knowledge”

62
Q

Who wrote materiality in the future of history

A

Frank trentman

63
Q

What does frank trentman argues

A

That the study of things is back in fashion, that things have recaptured our imagination
Also he argues that there has been a material turn

64
Q

Trentmans problems with current material culture

A

That historians at the moment tend to use it only inthe study of the domestic
“At the moment that material world is mainly soft, decorative and visable”

65
Q

What does trentman have to say about ANT

A

Most influential, if controversial platform for exploring the agency and causation of things .. Sees agency as being distributed between objects and humans

66
Q

What do Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty see the material world as

A

As woven into people’s bodies , identities and actions.
Things shape and affect our lives
Things are integral parts of our relationships

67
Q

Who is Pierre Bourdieu

A

French social theorist and critic

68
Q

What did Pierre Bourdieu write

A

“A social critique on the judgment of taste”

69
Q

What does Bourdieu argue

A
That our personal taste is culturally manufactured, we are trying to adhere to the social Norms of our class
These can be shown through the clothes we wear, food we order at a restaurant how we interpret art
70
Q

Bourdieu quote

A

“The clothes you wear not only represent your personal taste they are indicators of you class, social milieu, status and education”

71
Q

What is Foucaults work on material culture

A

Discipline and punish 1977

72
Q

What does Foucault argue in discipline and punish

A

That power lies in objects and things and institutions , in uniforms signs and ways of thinking

Objects eg. Panopticon, guillotine during french Rev , school uniforms, desks

73
Q

Who is Clifford Geertz

A

Anthroplolgist

74
Q

What is Geetz main argument

A

That animals are able to survive because the tools and methods that they need to understand the world are encoded within them. This is was makes them diffrent to us
To survive humans need external coding, we call this coding culture . We need to be able to understand symbols and objects from road signs to clothes
The ijob of a historian is to decode the historic universe

75
Q

What is labours main jam

A

Actor network theory

76
Q

Who are important people to do with non human agents

A

Bruno Latour

77
Q

Latour quote

A

“Anything with the ability to modify a state of affairs by affecting change is an agent”

78
Q

What constitutes non human agents

A

Objects , animals, landscapes ?.